


Portal Redirect

by FanficPhoenix



Category: Invader Zim, Multi-Fandom, Original Work, Skylanders - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Dark Humor, Depression, Deviates From Canon, Disturbing Themes, Fantasy Violence, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Meta, Mild Horror, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV First Person, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficPhoenix/pseuds/FanficPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Core of Light has been destroyed, but not all of the Skylanders were banished to Earth. One squadron was blown further than the others had been, and crashed through reality and into a new universe; one in the center of the multiverse. It's been four months since then, and the small group ponders their own dilemmas... but Sunburn has far more to deal with, having finally broken free. No more hunters. Nothing but freedom and a new slate.</p><p>However, in a world that can connect to all other worlds, all sorts of specters and monsters are bound to come crawling out of the depths, born of anything imaginable. Monsters and magic, chaos over order. For the young phoenix-dragon, even when he's safe from his homeworld, he's not in the clear. Even now, these near-endless possibilities can - and will - change him forever.</p><p>He won't be the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crossed Over

**Author's Note:**

> ((Note that this story was originally conceived around December 17th 2011, was originally written around July 27th 2012, and went on hiatus for many years under writer's block and constant rewrites. In short, this story is older than it seems.
> 
> Also, I apologize if the fandom tags are confusing. There's multi-crossover bits everywhere along with chunks of my own 'verse, and those were the best-fitting tags I could find.))

The café was a… hexagon shape, I think? It had eight sides, and two of the sides were longer than the others. I don’t think that’s a hexagon. I’m not sure what it is.

A long red ribbon was hung along the ceiling, with pink, yellow, and blue papers hanging off of it.  There were small trees near the entrance, some boxes and barrels along the walls, and two stands in the back. One stand was decorated with plants and a blobby blue figure, and the other had colorful glass fluid barrels and a shelf covered in food.

There were four round tables in the room; we were seated at the one closest to the crate stand.

“Debate engaged. Continuing to stay in the new universe will leave the original universe five percent defenseless. Counterpoints to argument requested.”  Drobot eyed the person to his right. “Presumed-sentimental person first. Whirlwind.”

Drobot was a dull green dragon, gangly and scraggle-toothed, with dull brown legs and a long wrinkly neck. His shiny navy armor made his wings look painfully stiff and made his eyes bulge out lifelessly. He had a metal chunk on his tail-tip and a glowing orb embedded in his back, but neither actually _did_ anything.

The other person, Whirlwind, leaned back with her arms out and glanced to the side. She was blue with a feathered tail and wings, a sharp ridged horn, head nubs, and a pale blue underbelly. The whites of her eyes (...is there a term for that?) were a deep blue. Around her shoulders was a satchel full of… something.

“Iiiii don’t know…” She glanced back at Drobot. “I, uh… kind of like it here? Skylands seemed kind of unpleasant, then it got better, then it got unpleasant again. Maybe one day I’ll go back, but… It’s just a lot of pressure. And racism.” She shrugged and gave an awkward grin. “Besides, it’s like a fresh start!” she said, waving her arms a little. “Maybe we’ll learn something new from… being new? Uh…”

“You wish to stay in the universe where we were introduced as glorified mass-replicas of ourselves.”

“Is there really a difference?”

“Personally, I like being away from the rabid fans who keep asking when I’m gonna have sex with Spyro. I’m seventeen and he’s eleven; some don’t know, supposedly, but some _don’t care_ and that’s fucking gross.” Cynder leaned her head on one arm, scowling in irritation and boredom. Her scales were some sort of indigo or violet or something, and her wings and underbelly were some sort of rose or magenta or… something. She had three sets of curved horns, a flat head, blue eyes, an arrowhead tail-tip, and spiky metal jewelry.

“And there are none of those here…?” Drobot peered at her.

“Probably not, but hey, there’s a bunch of those for every other universe prettied-up and shown off. We’ve got the least of the shit.”

Drobot paused, then nodded slowly. “Point accepted.”

“Meh, I’m just following you guys.” Camo said that. I hate him. Let’s move on.

“Besides, I couldn’t ever leave my gals!” He wrapped his arms around Cynder and Drobot, pulling them near himself in some sort of stupid unwanted hug. He looked at Drobot, realized it was Drobot, and let go, all while Cynder was cussing him out and clawing her way out of his grasp.

“And Zap, my bro! Where is he?”

“He didn’t make it, and _we told you this already_ ,” I said flatly.

“Calm your nips, dude…”

“He’s not mad, he’s just telling you you’re being a dumbass,” Cynder added, smirking when Camo stared at her in exasperation.

“… _Ahem_. Despite the Core meltdown four months ago, Kaos has been neutralized and the portal network re-established. Backup military forces have been deployed to assist. However, the aforementioned five percent still leaves a defensive hole. Counterpoints?” Drobot looked around at us.

“I’m staying,” I said.

“Reason?”

“I don’t need one.”

Drobot gave me a wary stare, then looked towards the others for a response.

“Too many creeps. I’m staying here,” said Cynder.

Whirlwind muttered something to herself.

Camo shrugged.

Drobot’s eye plates flashed. “Results inconclusive. We shall remain here until the next debate is engaged.”

“H-hey! I’m staying if you bros are!” Camo sputtered. “Count me in too!! Aah, I can stay with my Sun-bro! We can eat peppers all day and- h-hey!”

I groaned and walked out the door.

_Good god… I need a grotto of my own. I’m sick of this guy._

 

* * *

 

The corridor was thin and tall, covered in white tile and white stone and white everything else. I took the right path, entering the large two-story hall. I took a turn to the left, immediately exiting the hall and entering one of the larger, main corridors.

I turned the next corner and froze.

A large, beige, wingless dragon stood dead-center at the T-shaped intersection. Their frilly head bent down, trying to get a grip on some sort of loose and fleshy slime-cocoon. Their tail was curled around a thick pipe, which was dented on the side and oozing from the end.

I backed up and hid behind the nearest wall, quietly watching every step they made. They tried lifting the cocoon with their mouth, but gave up and resorted to dragging it down the center hall.

After they left my sight, I silently sprinted to the next corner and peered out from behind it. The next room was another large hall - a four-way intersection - with a big gap in the center of the floor that lead to a lower floor. The dragon was dragging the sac around the hole, heading towards the far exit.

I waited for them to make it just to the door, then I dashed after them, lifting my claw-tips to avoid a giveaway _click-clack_ -

“ _HEY!!!_ ”

I skidded to a stop and fell on my butt as the dragon dropped the sac and jolted around.

“Hey, sorry dudes. Drobot was all wonderin’ why you left and I was like, I DUNNO, and I came to check up on ya! Heh, you’re a real mess!” I seethed as Camo strutted up towards me. “Meetin’ up with some guy? Friend of yours? I had a pen pal once. She had some RAD melons! Melons, cantaloupe, pumpkins, yams… Heard she won some gardening contest or whatever. I’d enter, but it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else, heh. …Hey, dude! Pay attention, man!”

“What is it? I am most busy, you know,” came a dry British accent. I turned around and looked at the beige dragon, who was blankly glaring at us both.

“Busy? Hey, what’s that bag for?”

“It’s for… groceries.” His expression brightened. “Ah, yes, I do have quite a lovely stew waiting to be made, and a small child waiting as well! As you see, I must be going-”

“Aw, don’t be like that!” Camo said cheerfully. “Me and Sunbird here can help ya with that!”

“Sunbird and I,” the dragon corrected.

“ _Sunburn_ ,” I said.

“By the way, what’s your name, dude?” Camo strutted right up to the sac and smiled at the dragon. _Gullible trusting little-_

“My name is Eredwyn.”

“Huh? You sure that’s not a girl’s name? I’m gonna call you Eric. Sounds more like a _dude_. Hey, Sunbird! Over here!”

I scowled as I got up and walked over to them. Eredwyn was looking up with a gloating smile, and Camo was giving me a stupid look. Camo grabbed the sac by one side, gripping at it with his claws, and started dragging it to the exit.

“H-hey, you gonna help?!” he wheezed.

I stared at him.

Something… didn’t feel right.

“Fine, man, geeze,” he grunted, turning his attention away from me.

Eredwyn and Camo dragged that thing through the doorway as I followed, peering down at the abyss. I didn’t see a bottom or a top to it.

I’ve heard that this room’s a near-infinite tower called the TSF – the Tall-Story-Fall, because what else would you expect for names in a _mall universe_? One person told me that it was thousands of miles long. Another told me that it didn’t end at all.

At least I have wings, I guess.

“So, uh… where’s your house?” Camo looked around dumbly.

“Four stories up, on the right of the left,” Eredwyn stated.

“Right of the- okay, you know what? He can do that,” he said, shoving the sac at me.

“No.” I stood there as he stared at me. He threw his arms up.

“Geeze, dude! He didn’t take your limbs or bang your girlfriend or anything! Why are you being such an ass?” Camo looked at Eredwyn. “Gee, I’m sorry, man. He’s such an asshole sometimes and no one knows why. Like, we’re nice to you, right? What’s your deal?! Heh… sorry, dude. We just put up with him ‘cause Sonic tells us to. I think she has too much pity for the guy. Too much of a doormat.”

“She has more guts than _you_ do,” I retorted.

“Oh my god, dude! She can’t even _leave her house_ most of the week!”

“Considering how she has to deal with people like you, I’m amazed she can bring herself to leave it at all.”

“Whatever. You only like the people that kiss your ass. I’m outta here.” With that, Camo stormed off.

“Hm. Now that you’re done with your… _scuffle_ , I believe I have some groceries I need assistance with.”

I glared at Eredwyn, both irritated and suspicious and feeling some sort of growing anxiety. _What is it that’s bothering me?_

“…Right.” _I have a chance to follow him, corner him, and get the info I want. If I play nice, then that might lower his guard. I’m not passing this up._

I grabbed the sac and flapped my wings as hard as I could. My wings are long and thin; good for escapes and travel, bad for moving in small areas. Slowly, I managed to hover upwards. Entrance floor, floor, floor, floor, floor…

There was a door on the left of the _third_ floor up. I landed on the balcony with a thud, squishing against the sac.

Something inside of it was-

“Thank you for that,” came Eredwyn’s voice. I turned around and saw him clambering up the balconies and over the railing. He touched his claw to a bar on the door, which lit up with a click and creaked open. “Now, my friend, would you be as kind as to help me unpack it inside?” He gripped the sac with his mouth and slinked into the thin dark opening.

Curious but cautious, I followed him in.

In contrast to the white walls outside, the corridor was made of a dull, dark blue stone (or metal?). It twisted to the left and to the right again in a zig-zag shape. At the end, I stood behind Eredwyn as he opened a second door. With a hiss and a click, it opened and he shoved his way through, with me close behind.

The room was pitch black, and my eyes were slow to adjust. Something off-color, massive, and faintly glowing was centered at the far side of the room (is that even the end?), and I could see Eredwyn’s silhouette in front of it, tiny in comparison. A gross liquid sound came from that direction as he fiddled with the base of the sickly-yellow mass, and I could see the sac enter the off-color area, float up, and get tethered by grotesque wisps.

“You have… _interesting_ cooking methods,” I remarked.

“Things like these don’t come along that often. I savor a delicacy when I can.”

His head turned towards me. He started walking forward. I backed up.

“Well, well. You’re both rather gullible. Outwardly, I expected him to be worse. Quite interesting…”

He suddenly lunged for me. I leapt out of the way, skidded in a U-turn, and ran right towards him, jumping at him and setting myself ablaze in a Phoenix Dash.

It fizzled out as soon as it started.

He grabbed me by the neck as the rest of me was slung forward by inertia. I let out a gurgled squawk and tried to teleport away.

Nothing.

I weakly jerked my limbs about, but something was draining me…

“Most of the do-gooders around here favor _very particular_ dragon magic. Fire, electricity, ice, earth… I’ve acquired a device to disable all of those, and I’ve set up the room with it. You’re a fire elemental? Good. That just makes my job easier.

“This room was built by an imbecile of a megalomaniac who would gather up fodder, lure monsters to captivity, and turn the fodder into impressive but inferior replicas of the beasts. Unfortunately, it would seem he was too stupid to implement a brainwash procedure. No matter. I don’t need it anyway. This certainly is most fortunate for me… you can’t fight back, and soon, no one will believe you. You can’t do anything.”

Something started buzzing behind me. Eredwyn strutted over to it.

“…You sound _and_ act like a cliché PG loon,” I said flatly. _If I go down, I might as well go down with sass._

He stopped with a jolt and scowled at me. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut, jerking his head around.

“Jeer all you want, my bothersome little friend, but at the end of the day it only serves to amuse me. I am tipping over the first in a line of dominoes that will certainly end in death. Grotesque, kid-unfriendly death. Curiosity killed the cat and blasted it to hell and back, and you’re both damned for forever and eternity _and I will destroy your lives as you know them!_ ”

He threw me into the light and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Eredwyn is a personal OC, and the setting depicted is also original/mine. I'll draw up a reference image when I can, don't worry.))


	2. Picture Imperfect

Everything felt like static. Cold, incomprehensible static.

Before unreality could fully sink in and turn me numb, a jolt of _pure and utter pain_ shot through my body, and all I could feel was a convulsion of agony. The horrible energy coursed down my spine, which felt as if it were being torn out – hell, it probably was. My skull felt like it was about to explode as the shocks flayed my skin and tore at my limbs. In that blurred void, I couldn’t even tell if I could scream or not.

It was quiet.

It was dark.

 

* * *

 

I felt reality fading back in.

I was in a great deal of pain, but… at least it no longer felt like my body was being torn apart.

I groaned, protectively curling up as my vision slowly came back. I winced as the bright lights hit my eyes, but… _wait._

_Where am I?_

I opened my eyes fully and tried to stand up, only to stumble forward and land with a _thunk_. As I coughed and sputtered, I looked up at the chamber I’d found myself in.

The room was a deep purple, with blueish-purple panels haphazardly dotting the walls. There was what looked like the remains of a square platform in the center… which was partially reduced to slag from a large drag crater. Across from me, a scalding circular blast-indent was sizzling and sparking along the upper wall.

(I seemed to be at the end of the disaster path, so I’ll guess that’s relevant to however I ended up here. Wherever… here _is_.)

Above the blasted platform, four thick cables were strung from the walls, connecting to a large gray core that hung from the ceiling. The core was currently on fire, dripping melted metal, sparking violently, and also kind of exploding a little.

Savvy enough to recognize an oncoming catastrophe (which, while the heat wouldn’t hurt me, the shrapnel and who-knows-what-else definitely would), I tried to get to my feet again, only to fall to my side. With an exasperated hiss, I started getting up again, only to freeze as I saw my legs.

They were plantigrade and coated in black.

My hind-feet were clawless and featureless, my body felt like it was covered in disembodied flesh, my hands looked pallid and featherless, and my forelimbs had this dark eldritch flesh sloughing off in a wide sheet. Not only that, but as I lurched to the side with growing unease, I could tell my center of mass was… off…

_…Oh my god._

As the facility around me began to shudder with a loud metallic groan, I heard running footsteps and muffled voices. I whipped my head around (while trying not to throw up from the sudden movement) and leaned back, defensively propping myself up with my forelimbs. As the door clicked and opened, the room split in half… with my end slowly sliding back and down, just barely hanging on by thick melted metallic strands.

I let out a screech as gravity slung me backwards, with my back hitting the wall relatively hard. I tried leaping forward to climb up to safety, but the metal floor was too slick to get a grip on – even _with_ all the slag. I hissed under my breath and pressed my arms against the wall, frantically looking around for an alternate escape route.

As the strands snapped and everything lurched back even further, I caught a glimpse of some sharp metallic spires outside. I slid myself to the side of the ledge, jumped forward enough to get a grip on the split’s edge, pulled myself forward, and lunged for the closest spire.

I grabbed onto it and held on tight.

The destroyed half of the room fell down, and as I watched it fall, I saw it tumble alongside the cliffside tower, crashing into several sharp rocks in the water below and taking a good deal of metal with it.

As the tower rumbled and shuddered once more, I turned and saw several more spires, all lined up… in the direction of solid ground. In spite of my malformed limbs, I dashed from spire to spire, slowing to a halt at the final one… looked down for a path of descent, saw a large monitor sticking out of the tower’s side… and I leapt onto it.

I missed my footing and slipped, but righted myself and landed in a tree, then hit the ground not too far below. I scrambled to my feet, ran a short distance, and then collapsed to my hands and knees.

Then… there was rain.

It grew faster and harder, rendering the sky murky and gray, but it was a mercy – and I was _alive_.

Sore all over but numb from shock and adrenaline, I finally fell limp and gasped for breath, hacking up a glob of what, in the low lighting, I presumed was blood. (Or a chunk of lung. Wouldn’t be any less plausible than _everything else_.)

I reflexively moved a hand to my chest, and clearly felt my heartbeat through my sternum – a sternum which was now distressingly thin. Although reality had been seeping in, I was still somehow stunned by this realization.

A gust of wind splattered extra rain on my face. With a huff, I shook my head and brushed a hand over my head – and I recoiled and yelled out in pain as something cut through my hand. I looked down at my hand, and I saw a deep gash going across the palm. Even more confused, I reached up again, but slower.

I felt an angled protrusion sprouting from my forehead.

My breath caught in my throat.

In my moment of stunned nothingness, I finally noticed that my eyesight was blocked by clear blobs of water. I slowly reached my non-bloody hand towards my eyes, and my finger pressed against a smooth, transparent slate.

I looked down at the ground and saw my reflection. From the moment I saw my malformed body in the broken chamber, I’d known I had been transformed into something… _humanoid_ … but this…

…

_…Oh my god!_

My head was roughly angular, with a layer of black fur coating the top of my head, topped off by a wickedly sharp scythe. My eyes were covered by a minimalist pair of glasses, with the raindrops muddling the visibility of my sharp brown irises. From the shoulders down, I was wearing a long, black, cape-like jacket, with a raised collar around the neck.

As the last drops of rain fell, the sky’s light broke through the clouds, casting a red glow upon the world, and hitting me even harder with the reality of what had happened. In the center of that reflection, what I saw was both myself and a total stranger… and…

…

…In that moment of confusion and fear, I knew I had clear goal.

I needed to go back.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up slowly. My legs shook, and I felt as if I’d fall over at any moment, but I managed to keep my balance… somehow.

Looking back at the smoking tower behind me, I could see groups of armored humans scattering themselves and checking the wreckage. At least one or two seemed to glance back at me.

I heard the wailing of sirens in the distance, and I turned back around to see a few ambulances (or whatever they were) speeding towards here. I dashed back under the tree, as one ambulance drove up and ran over an armored personnel member, the second ambulance crashed into the first, the third crashed into the second, and the fourth gently parked nearby.

As I sat under the tree, curling up in the waterlogged grass between the outer roots, I couldn’t do anything but breathe heavy and shiver uncontrollably, finally falling out of shock as the weight of everything set in. Taking deep breaths and trying to calm down, I fell to my side with a wet _thump_ , curled up, and...

 

* * *

 

My eyes fluttered open as I heard another crash; quieter, but-

_…I FELL ASLEEP?!_

All my life I’d conditioned myself to never sleep, only rest; anything else would leave me vulnerable. I guess all the _excitement_ finally wore me down.

I pressed my arms against the soft ledge I was on and leaned up into a sitting position… if awkwardly shifting your mutated legs around while pressing both forehands to the ledge like a confused quadruped counted as sitting.

The room I was in was very dark – blue or purple – but looked almost black. Across from me was a large monitor – a TV, right? – and before that was a wide table. As the memories of earlier resurfaced, a shiver went down my spine and my breath caught in my throat.

_I know this place._

Wary and wanting to investigate why I was brought here, I slid off the couch and my feet hit the carpet with a _thud_ and-

“Oh, you’re up.”

I wheeled around with a faint hiss, then backed up a little when I saw who it was.

I raised my hands in front of myself (in an outward-palm “I am not malicious” gesture) as the purple-haired female came closer. “You have no reason to, but I’m going to need you to listen to me – and more importantly, _believe me_.” I wheezed a bit and kept going, my voice hoarse. “I’m not who I look to be… not willingly.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You have amnesia _again?_ ”

“Wh- what? No.”

“Doppelganger?”

“N- Yes!”

As if on cue, she started rolling up her sleeves and holding her hands in an ‘I’m gonna kill you with these fists’ motion. “Alright, what did you do with my brother?”

I jumped back, taking slow steps backward like a digitigrade biped, teeth bared, hissing loudly and blinking my third eyelids. The girl stopped advancing and leaned back, grimacing in confusion.

I held up my hands again. “Don’t beat the crap out of me and I’ll explain everything.”

“…Deal.”


	3. Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Please critique my writing if there are any errors, be it character-wise or otherwise - especially in these IZ-focused chapters, as I'm not used to writing in that canon. Thank you!
> 
> Also, it's important to note that I will NOT consider the comics canon for the purposes of this fic. (Granted, they're canon discontinuity for me already, but that's not the point, heh.)))

“Okay, so…” I look down at the red marker in my hand, then up at the whiteboard, which Gaz had dragged into the basement laboratory. (Well, actually, she dragged ME into the lab and shoved the board at me, but that’s not the point.)

I stumbled in the direction of the board, still barely used to a plantigrade stance, then fell forward and gripped the sides of the board for balance. It pivoted on its stand, and I let out a squawk as my weight tipped it at an angle.

“ _…Anyway_ ,” I wheezed, still holding on, “I used to be a phoenix-dragon.” I tilted my head back to look at Gaz. “It sucked; don’t ask.” I looked back at the board, glancing at the marker in my right hand. I extended my left leg and pressed against the floor to tilt myself back into position, _still_ clinging to the board.

As I fumbled with the marker, I heard a remark behind me.

“You don’t know how to write?”

“Give me a break; I’ve never had thumbs before,” I retorted.

Finally getting a solid-enough grip on the marker, I pulled the cap off with my mouth (why the hell does it taste like _cake?)_ and started scribbling on the board. Although it took a good while due to my shaky hand, I eventually had a relatively-decent sketch of Eredwyn.

“This is the culprit.” I said, gesturing to the sketch. “This is the dragon that captured your brother. Technically, I don’t _need_ to describe him, but I figured we should have a reference for whose ass we need to kick.” I paused for a moment and turned around again. “Sure, some people say ‘but you can talk them down!’” I said, waving my marker-hand, “but honestly, sometimes murder is the best option.”

Gaz nodded thoughtfully. “I like how you think.”

I allowed myself a small grin and went back to sketching.

I drew a smaller blobby circle next to Eredwyn. “He had a fleshy sack with him. I’m guessing he stuffed your brother in it.”

I bit my lip and grimaced. _I could have done something then. I could have DONE something._

“I didn’t know he was there, but I knew the dragon was obviously evil – he had a British accent and cheesy dialogue and everything. I followed him to his lair and he went ‘aha, my magic field blocks dragon powers!’ and he threw me into a transformation-slash-teleporter _thing_ and… now I’m here.” I turned around again, seeing Gaz with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

“You didn’t say where this happened.”

I sighed. _Of course I forgot._ “Right… It’s some other universe called the Antiverse, and it…” I stood there shakily. (Not out of fear; I’m still having trouble with these _legs_.)

“And it what?”

“…I don’t know how to get back there,” I groaned. “ _Great_. Now we’re all stuck.”

Gaz grunted and headed for the stairwell. “Well, you blew up dad’s lab when you showed up. Your portal has to be _somewhere_ over there.”

I looked up. “Yeah… good point. I’m guessing that’s where we’re headed next?”

“No; skool’s in ten minutes.”

I balked in disbelief. “School? Isn’t that only on weekdays? It’s Saturday!”

“It’s Monday, and you showed up last morning. Look, Di- whoever you are… either you’re coming or you’re not. I don’t really care which.” She headed up the stairs.

_If I was in the portal all night… was I really out for a whole day? Could someone even be out for that long without being dea- ...you know what? I just got turned into someone else. I don't think normal logic applies here._

I glared in Gaz's direction. “How about this,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “You help me out after school, and when we find the Antiverse portal together, I’ll show you the way to its video game store – It’s a mall. The Antiverse is a mall.” I opened my eyes- and jolted back upon seeing her in front of me.

“I’m listening.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you usually wait for the bus?”

“No, but we can’t _walk_ to Hi Skool.”

I gave Gaz a confused look. “You’re a high school student?”

“Our school blew up.”

I couldn't think of a remark, so I zoned out and focused on the scenery around me.

The air was thick and unpleasant, and the sky was colored like _bile_. There wasn’t any snow for some reason, but the air and wind were bitterly cold despite the hot sunlight.

After a few minutes, a beaten-up gray bus slowed to a halt in front of us, stopping with a loud metallic groan. Before I could react, Gaz tossed a black backpack at me, hitting me in the chest with a _horf_.

The rusty folding doors opened, and Gaz stepped into the bus. I followed, grabbing onto vomit-free parts of the handlebars, and entered the giant vehicle, which was grimy and full of the scent of meat. Ignoring the hordes of grubby children and blemished teenagers, I held onto my backpack and followed Gaz to a seat near the middle of the bus, one that was occupied by two cheerleaders (I think?). Gaz gave them a cold stare and they ran off.

She sat down near the window. “I always get the window seat.”

I sat down next to her. “Fine by me.”

With a rumble (and a small explosion in the back), the bus started moving.

Honestly, I think I was still in shock from the other day – at least mentally. I’ve been near-totally morphed into another person – one who needs rescuing, even – and now I’ve been more or less dragged into shadowing his life until I can figure out something, _anything_ , and get back to that bizarre _perpendicular universe_. It’s a wonder I’m even coherent.

_Funny… It’s strange how “parallel universes show up as media forms until warped to” doesn’t put me in a daze but this- …Oh god, I’m going to have to explain that someday. Good luck with the existential crises, future me._

Speaking of explaining things…

I leaned back against the seat and looked to my half-willing ally. “I need to mention a few things – I won’t take too long.”

She kept staring out the window. “Uh-huh.”

I put on the backpack, slipping the strips (straps?) over my shoulders and letting the heavy pack rest against my spine. It was oddly comforting to have on.

“Well, first, I need to know my- well, Dib’s schedule. Two, I’m awful at almost every subject. I’m probably good at gym and maybe an anatomy class, but that’s it.”

She turned around. “Anatomy?”

“You know... vulnerable spots, which body parts are edible…”

She gave me an amused look. “Which parts would those be?”

“Oh, the liver and muscle are pretty good, the heart’s alright, the lungs are mediocre, and any part of the digestive system is repulsive by default. Bone marrow has an interesting taste, but unless you have a lot of spare time, it’s better to just eat the muscles and leave.”

“Hey, _loser!_ ” came a loud gravel-choking voice behind us. “What are you, a _zombie?_ HAH!” As I turned around, a thick meaty hand whapped me in the head, and I glared up at the chunky pallid mass before me.

_Don’t fight back, don’t fight back…_

I steeled myself and turned away.

“Hey, this loser’s as BRAINDEAD as one! HAAAAAAAA!” Another whap.

_…Oh, screw it._

“What about _you?_ ” I retorted, wheeling around to stare the walking tumor dead in the eye. “Oh my god, is there really a _human_ under all that meat?” I leaned back and waved my arms for emphasis. “Are- are beanbags even _allowed_ on the bus?”

_Well, I’m screwed already. Might as well go all-in._

“Membrane Labs called, they want their sentient blob back!” To top it off, I let out an ‘oohh’ and a hiss, folding my arms close. “Oh, wait, that's an insult to _sentience_.”

_Or sapience, but I don’t think you’re at that level yet._

The bus was dead-silent for several tense moments, before erupting into raucous laughter. I gave a smirk as the meaty mass in the other seat glared at me like a bull on heroin, nostrils flaring.

“You’re so dead, kid!” he roared. “I’m gonna kick your ass at… at… uh… playtime!”

Another lump next to him – this one with actual hair - whispered in his ear.

“ _Recess_.”

“…Recess! RECESS! You’re _dead!_ ”

I rolled my eyes and casually leaned back in my seat.

“DEAD! DEEEAAAAAAAAAAAD!!”

“Uh-huh, sure,” I muttered.

Gaz groaned and facepalmed against the glass.

_Well, first day as a human and I’ve already provoked someone’s murderous bloodlust – can’t identify them by their name, but the stench makes up for that. Hopefully he’ll get expelled or killed before Dib gets back._

If _he gets back, but… I don’t want to think about that. Not yet._

_…I probably should’ve stayed quiet, huh?_

I spaced out after that, folding my arms and closing my eyes.

 

* * *

 

It took me a few seconds to notice the bus had stopped for at least a minute.

Next to a… skyscraper.

I leaned over towards Gaz, who I now noticed had some sort of Gameboy out. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

She grunted in annoyance. “Hi Skool’s on the top of the building.”

“That’s… ridiculously literal.”

She shrugged and turned away from me. “Welcome to Cleveland.”

As if on cue, the bus began to shake and float off the ground. I couldn’t tell if it was a flying bus or if it was dragged up by cables, but I wasn’t invested enough to care that much, so I leaned back and waited.

And waited.

And _waited_.

After _literally two damn hours_ of lifting (and watching Gaz’s game over her shoulder), the bus’ doors _finally_ hissed open. Before I could even stand up, the hordes of children screamed in relief and stampeded out of the bus.

I stood up on my wobbly legs and paced down the aisle.

_I can do this… Eight to three, two hours getting down and half getting home, then I make a beeline for the laboratory. I can do this._

_I have to._


	4. Slightly More Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Just a reminder that the fic's gonna get darker as it goes. It also gets brighter later on, but, well, that's /later/ on, so...))

Look, I know I’m a pretty judgmental person, but when your first view of a children’s facility is a _ten-foot tall barbed-wire electric fence_ around the entire perimeter, you’d be completely right in assuming this was where the bowels of hell expunged their contents upon the earth.

“Maybe I’ll get lucky and today will be field trip day,” I muttered, walking past a chalk outline and heading to the school’s entrance. Gaz had gone ahead of me and disappeared into the masses of children, so I was on my own.

Looking up at the cold gray prison before me, I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and placed my hand on the actually-cold metal door…

“Hey, Dib!”

…pushing open the- _oh god, I forgot that means ME!_

“Whaddaya doin’ up there? You have to be with your group – _and_ your great _mini-counselor!_ ” The lightly nasal voice chuckled and got closer. “Don’t you know that?”

Frozen on the spot, I turned around, my expression giving away my anxiety, and saw a lanky teen only a little taller than me approach. He (I think this is a male?) had short blond hair, a freckled face, orange-colored eyes (kind of a pumpkin-y orange), mostly-brown attire, and a skin tone that was a stereotypically-fleshy-pinkish with a tan tint.

“...You okay, dude?” the male asked humoredly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or somethin’.”

I gripped my backpack’s sleeves tighter. “Um… can you remind me what your name is?”

The male gave me a ‘you’re kidding, right?’ look. “Louie? A fellow _aspiring investigator_? I only looked you up after that whole exposure event, sure, and two months aren’t a long time for-”

“Exposure?” I spouted, cutting him off. I eyed the startled teen. “What exposure? What event?”

Louie’s smile faded. “…You don’t remember anything?” He peered back at me. “Do you-”

“For the purposes of today, let’s just assume I’m amnesiac,” I said, cutting him off again. As he looked upon me with suspicion, I awkwardly tried breaking the silence by lightly grabbing and shaking one of his hands.

“Nice to, uh, re-meet you.”

The silence was still awkward.

 _After I get Dib back, I need to practice social skills_ and _lying better. Plan B is either fighting or hiding, and I don’t think stuffing myself in a locker would help me out that much._

_Then again-_

“I’ll… take you to your group,” Louie said, gently leading me by the hand but still looking extremely suspicious.

_I’ll take this as a temporary… half-victory?_

“Uh, that’s your old class over there,” he said, gesturing to a group of almost twenty kids that were probably supposed to be at least tangentially recognizable. It was then that I realized the field had emptied of all other kids, sans the three clusters of elementary students.

“Some of us high-skoolers got to cut class if we agreed to watch the elementary kids, so I quit bein’ a hall monitor and now I’m here!” Louie flamboyantly waved an arm upward, cheerful again.

“…Because of me?”

“Well, yeah! I mean, how many other _fellow investigators_ are there?" He refocused on me. “It gets pretty lonely without your kindred, my friend!” He leaned in towards me, and I stiffened. “You remember my codename, right?” he whispered.

I slowly broke eye contact. “No…”

His posture drooped and the look he gave me was sadder than a puppy getting kicked in the _teeth_.

“ALRIGHT, YOU LITTLE MAGGOTS!!” came an ear-splitting scream that knocked me, Louie, and _every other kid_ to the ground. “I’VE GOTTA DEAL WITH Y’ALL TO GET PAID, SO _GET IN LINE!!_ ”

As I saw the other kids scrambling to their feet and standing in a row (with one of them running out of sight), I struggled to my feet as well and ran to the nearest end of the line.

“ _DIB!_ YOU’RE _LATE!_ ”

I looked to the source of the voice. It was a tiny woman, short and fat, wearing a thick and cutesy flower sweater, with fire-scarred skin and squinted eyes and disturbingly saggy boobs and a frame that contrasted sharply with _the screech of thunder._

“By a _few seconds_ ,” I replied incredulously.

She stomped closer and leered up at me. “Are you back-talking me, sonny boy?”

“Is that a trick question?”

I heard scattered whispers come from my line, along with at least one “he’s _so dead_ ”.

The lady pulled down her right eyelid with a raised middle finger. “ _Look into my eye,_ ” she growled, then stomped back towards another group.

As she roared at other kids, and as the assistant teens nervously bickered among each-other, I heard more whispers coming from my line. It took me a second to realize _why_.

“Is that really _Dib?_ ”

“I never knew anyone could _do_ that…”

“Dude, what is _with_ you today?” the short and stumpy boy next to me asked, wide-eyed and bewildered.

I just stared at him. “…It’s a long story.”

 

* * *

 

After listening to my classmates’ muttering, I learned that the disturbingly emphatic woman was named Mrs. Murggs, first period was an outdoor gym class, and Murggs was the school nurse. I’m not sure which part of this is worse.

“TODAY’S PUNISHMENT FOR BEING YOUTHFUL IS AN OBSTACLE COURSE!” Murggs violently pointed to several boards and other structures, all covering the playground equipment and forming an elaborate gauntlet. “SABOTAGE IS ENCOURAGED! IF YOU DIE, IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT!”

The sixteen other kids and I lined up around a large dome of metal bars, circling it in a ready position. _Well, this is oddly fitting. The fairly-athletic Sunburn ends up with an unfamiliar body and gets stuck doing this. Good luck, me._

“ _NOW GET RUNNING BEFORE I PILEDRIVE Y’ALL MYSELF!!!_ ”

‘Get running’ was enough for me. I was off.

The start was a mess. I grabbed onto the bars, fingers up and thumbs low, pulled myself up, put my hind-feet on other bars, slipped without hind-claws to grip with, discovered that these boots had a heel that jutted out _just enough_ to keep me from slipping off, then re-stabilized and scrambled up to the top.

Glancing back to assess the others, I saw that the fat kid was stuck and the hat kid’s arms had fallen off, then I lunged for the nearby boards (and reminded myself to run upright).

The wooden boards were nailed down to a series of horizontal hanging bars… which didn’t last very long. At the end of the bridge, an uprooted upside-down spinning wheel dangled by several thick bars, with clumps of cement and corpse fragments still stuck to what was now the upper side. With a running leap, I grabbed one of the bars hanging down from the wheel.

See, here’s a fun fact about any quadruped ever: they lack any decent gripping power. This is relevant because I struggled to hang on and almost fell to the ripped-up cement below. Thinking quickly, I thrust one arm upward and clung on by the crook of my elbow. As my momentum carried me to the other side – almost too fast to process – I let go.

My front half landed on the next set of boards – these ones jutting out of a lumpy wall – and I dug my claws into the thin and splintered wood before momentum could send me sliding off the edge. I ignored the mangling and bleeding and dragged the rest of myself onto the platform.

Always overly-conscious of anyone running behind me, I turned around again. A good deal of kids were crowded on the other platform, some baffled at the upturned wheel (a merry-go-round, right?), some trying to grab on but flailing into the cement chunks below, and one stuck to the rapidly-spinning bars by her teeth.

_…Alright. This isn’t life-or-death. I can… ease up a little. Yeah. I can do this._

I slowly got to my feet, only now realizing how much _pain_ my fingertips were in. I took a few moments to look over the wall – it was gray and covered with colorful foamy lumps. _Oh, a rock wall! With… no rocks. Right._

As I gripped the nubs and pulled myself up (and yes, _it hurt),_ I heard a bunch of noise coming from below. I whisked my head around and saw a thin blue-haired female cheating her way up by climbing a thick support pole.

I wasn’t sure whether to hate her for cheating or like her for the shortcut.

The climb up the rock wall was pretty mild (not counting the _PAIN)_ , essentially like the dome but with less people scrambling around. As the wall thinned out near the top, though, I felt a hard shove but kept my grip, and turned to see the blue girl right next to me.

“Get out of the way, _loser!_ ”

I kicked her off the wall out of spite.

As I made my way to the top, my thoughts wandered a little. _I wonder if my blood is still poisonous. Apparently Skylands dragons have blood microbes that deteriorate the muscle cells of… whoever eats the blood? Gets it on them? Injects it directly into their bloodstream? Any non-dragon was screwed, yeah, but I… don’t remember the specifics. Either way, I think I’ve bled over most of this wall by now._

_I’d say ‘maybe the nurse will help’, but that’d be too out-of-character._

I got to the top of the wall, pulled myself onto the next platform, got to my feet, and… was greeted by the puzzled stare of Murggs.

“I, uhhhh, didn’t expect any of y’all to get up here.”

Awkward silence.

“…That’s it?” I stared back at her. “That’s the whole course?”

“Uhhheaahhhuhh. Yeah.”

Another awkward silence.

“Ladder’s uhhh there.” She pointed to a flimsy ladder leading up from the black cement (or whatever; I don’t know what this stuff is called).

She started down the ladder herself. It broke.

I found another support pole and eased my way down that instead.

 

* * *

 

Another discovery: I still have some degree of heat resistance. I didn’t walk through fire or fall into lava, but I figured it judging by how the other kids struggled into the shade while I felt perfectly fine. No small feat, considering I was caked in dark, heat-absorbing colors.

…I should probably question why it’s this hot in the middle of December.

As I sat down in the pleasantly cool shade, the fat kid from earlier backed away from me.

 _…Oh, right, I’m supposed to pass myself off as Dib! I think I’ve been as out-of-character as is mortally_ possible. _Remind me to never write fanfiction._

“Dude… what is with you?” the fat kid squeaked out as the toothy girl quietly sat next to me. “You’re, like, you’ve got…”

_Please don’t say balls._

“Balls!”

_Damn it._

“What, I’ve never done this before?” I asked. _Has Dib… never sassed anyone? Ever? Geeze… after all this is settled, I need to look up more of those episodes to refresh my memory- and_ wow, _the metaverse is a_ hell _of a trip. Metaverse, multiverse, perpendicular whatever…_

“Yeah, but you keep… _doing it!_ ” a pale beanpole of a kid butted in with.

“Yeahhh, that _is_ weird. Why are you a _different_ kind of _weird_ today, _Dib?_ ” piped up an equally-pale purple-haired girl.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I even told you,” I said.

I heard a bell ring.

 _The bell…! Second class already?_ I looked over at another group going through the obstacle course, with Louie standing near them and staring straight at me. _Hopefully it’ll be something else I can handle._ I then looked out at my blood-crusted fingertips. _Without being maimed, that is._

“Wonder what next class is,” I muttered out loud.

“Man, Dib, how could you forget? It’s _their_ _recess!_ ” a short-teal-haired male exclaimed from behind the purple-haired girl.

I furrowed my eyebrows. “And…?”

“IT’S PAYBACK TIME, LITTLE MAAAAN!” came a throaty scream from across the playground.

_…Oh._

I barreled out of the way as the giant walking tumor tried to plow me down, only for him to crash into a support pole and send the whole obstacle course crashing down. As I got to my feet, he came charging back at me. I went with my impulse; I spun around on my hands, whacking him in the legs with my feet and sending him toppling over.

 _Alright, he’s way too fat to actually damage – blunt-force_ or _cutting._ I got to my feet again and backed up as he started getting to his. _I need another way to take him down._

As I watched him stand up, I saw something past him.

_The electric fence!_

He charged again and I dodged again.

_Too heavy to knock over. Need to lure him there._

I strafed around him, putting myself between him and the nearest stretch of fence.

“Hey, asshole!” I yelled. “Over here!”

_I hope he’s dumb enough for this!_

The gargantuan mass roared, and as he charged towards me, he spread out both of his arms as if to stop me from dodging.

_Clever …_

Pressing myself against the ground for a split second, I leapt up over him as he ran right under me with a priceless look of confusion.

_…but not clever enough!_

I turned around just in time to see him hit the fence.

It didn’t stop him.

As the misshapen teen smashed through the barbed wire, he screamed bloody murder, plummeting over the edge to his death.

The schoolyard was quiet.

As stunned whispers started to spread, I heard something stomping up behind me and turned around to see the bloodied mass that was Murggs.

“Uh… that was his fault,” I half-lied.

Murggs made a gargled grumble and pulled out a tiny handheld device. “HAROLD, WE GOT ANOTHER JUMPER!!” she yelled into it. I heard a pig squeal come from the speaker as she stormed off towards the others.

“SCHOOL’S OUT WHILE WE STAVE OFF THE LAWSUITS! WHADDAYA WANT, A PARTY?! _GO TO THE DROP-OFF!!_ ”

As all the kids cheered and stampeded back to the bus area, I couldn’t help but let a grin slip. This did not go unnoticed by Louie, who was standing nearby.

“I can’t believe I just saw that! _You_ , killing _Flobb_ , the school’s most infamous bully!” He exclaimed.

“…Flobb. Huh. Fitting name,” I remarked, as I started to enter the bus.

“What’s gotten into ya lately?” He gave me a humored look which… _really_ failed to hide his suspicious tone.

I couldn’t come up with a good-enough response to that, so I just patted him on the head and went on my way.


	5. Exile Modify

As the bus lowered itself back down to the street as absurdly slow as possible, I wished that I could catapult out a window and fly to the lab myself, rather than go insane over three-plus hours of nothingness. _Hell, even gliding like a little baby, or just staring at someone else’s Metroidvania game to give me something to focus on, would be better than this._

_…I left Gaz behind, didn’t I?_

_…_

_I’ll… deal with that later._

Instead of being on the right side of the bus, I’d moved myself to the left side so I could have a view of the city through the window. _Might as well memorize every building and path I can find. Who knows how long I’ll be here?_

The first thing I spotted was a hodgepodge facility with a mangled tower – the Labs.

My first thought was _wow, that’s convenient,_ followed by _how the hell did I miss that?_ But hey, I’ll take whatever shortcuts I can get. Hell knows I could use the mercy.

One problem, though: sizing up this tiny window indicates I can’t shove my head through it (although I appreciate the thought of the tiny emergency exit), and I’m pretty sure trying to bash my way through the entry door will just get me in trouble somehow.

…Not now; I mean when I get to the ground. Still can’t fly. Still not suicidal.

 _Alright, think, Sunburn, think. Bus, bus, bus… what do I know about buses? I know double decker buses exist, and one time a Hubverse person jury-rigged it with rockets and shot it off a cliff… and later rigged it to honk_ “ _Jingle Bell Rock_ ” _\- or was that another bus? No, that was another bus._

Something tapped my head and I whirled around to confront-

“Hey, Diiib?” said a freckled blue-haired beige kid who smelled like cake. “You’re not gonna kill us for all the times we beat you up… riiiight?”

_All the times you- …oh…_

As stared back, a grin slowly crept onto my face, and I tilted my head back and bared my teeth ever so slightly, watching the kid shiver and draw back in fear. “Let me make you a deal. _All of you._ ”

The kid let out a squeal, and every other kid from the class rose from behind him. Judging by their expressions, they weren’t here to back him up.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, standing up on the seat and propping my hands against the back, leaning forward with a sly expression. “I have something I’d like to do today. You help me out with that, and I’ll consider all your past _transgressions_ forgiven…”

They started smiling and nodding.

“…but even though I’ll _act_ as if today never happened once I get back, I won’t forget anything. You cross me again after that and you can consider your safety _lost_.”

They nodded even faster.

I grinned wider, gratified by their fear (and glad they fell for the “future amnesia but not amnesia” lie).

Without breaking eye contact, I pointed to the window. “There’s something I need in the Membrane Labs, but let’s just say it’s… _unrecognizable_.” _By that, I mean I have literally no idea what we’re looking for, and it might not even be there in the first place. Not that you need to know that._

I clasped my hands together. “I want you to help me stop this bus when it passes the building, then I want you to help me track down what I want.”

For a second, I couldn’t remember why they were following me so eagerly, but then I remembered: oh yeah, _I killed a guy_. Guess this means I’ve also shoved Dib into the resulting power vacuum.

_You’re welcome?_

 

* * *

 

A fun fact I learned about buses today: they have emergency fire exits right in the back. Honestly, I’m surprised the designers actually had enough brainpower to include multiple exits.

For the rest of the _tedious_ lowering process, I’d moved to a seat in the very back so I’d be ready to jump out of it when the bus reached the ground. Every once in a while, I’d glance back to make sure the other kids were still paying attention, and give them a sharp glare if they seemed to be resisting. It was enough to get them back in line.

The toothy girl from the obstacle course seemed persistently aloof, but when I gave her a glance, she just smiled and waved shyly at me, which must’ve meant she was affable from the start.

She tried sitting next to me. I let her. It seemed to make her happy.

“Alright, now,” I started, as I saw the bus finally near the street. “You, distract the bus driver so we won’t be noticed,” I said, pointing to the stumpy vomit-blonde girl. “Everyone else, follow my lead.”

As the bus touched the street and started moving, I could hear the girl running to the other end of the bus and babbling at the driver. Taking that as my cue, I wrenched the exit lever up and shoved the door open. I cringed as an alarm went off, but I could hear the girl yelling even louder; I couldn’t tell if it was a clever distraction or just inane screaming, but success or not, I jumped down onto the quickly-moving road.

As I hit the black material with a _thunk_ and spiraled along the road, I shoved myself aside with my legs and rolled out of the street in a single lunge. As I got up and stood before the laboratory, I turned around to see all the kids spilling out of the bus and running towards me, reaching the grass as the bus rounded a corner and disappeared (followed by a crash and some smoke).

I gave a quick look over the area before us, counting four guards, only one visible door, and a number of large windows, then turned back around and looked over what – or who – I had to work with.

_I’ll ask if they know- frick, no, I still have to act in-character! I can’t ask what this place is like, since supposedly I know everything already! Okay, Sunburn, think…_

“Pop quiz: how many of you have been here before?” I asked the crowd. “I know everything about this place already, obviously, but you’ve gotta tell me everything I definitely already know, or… else…” I trailed off when I couldn’t come up with a subtle enough threat, but waving my fingers around instead seemed to scare them pretty well anyway.

I folded my arms and watched as five kids stepped forward: the obnoxious blue-haired girl, the skinny guy, the toothy girl, a fairly bland brown-haired girl (who was also beige, like _almost every human in this city seems to be_ ), and the pastry kid.

“Okay…” I looked them over. “I’ll call you…” I pointed to each one in order. “Jerk. Beanpole. Purple. …Placeholder Name. Cake.”

“Who are _you_ calling a _jerk?_ ” Jerk said as she stepped closer, trying to be intimidating.

I swiftly moved to butt heads with her and watched that smug look fizzle off her face. “ _Don’t_ _push your luck with me,_ ” I hissed through gritted teeth.

As she backed off, I turned to look at the other four, all who looked unnerved. “Other than the main door, how else can we get in?”

Purple raised her hand. “Uh, there’s a test to get into the audieence…”

I clasped my hands together. “Okay! How long is it?”

She looked away. “Uh… there’s a written paart… and I dunno what’s after thaat…”

 _…Wait, this sounds familiar._ “How many of you ever did the test?”

All five raised their hands.

“How many of you passed?”

Only Placeholder kept her hand up.

“…Right. You.” I pointed to her. “Get into the audience and call back to tell us if you see anything.”

“Uh, can we have your phone numberr?” Purple piped up with.

 _…You know, I kinda miss just going in by myself and not having to deal with hordes of people. Each one is like a germ culture, but with_ variables _._

“…Yes! Phones. And as we _all_ know, _my_ phone device is…?” Silence. I waved my arms up in a ‘give me something to work with here’ gesture. _Come on, guys, I can’t lie convincingly forever!_

“Hey, don’t you have that weird _wrist phone_ of yours?” came a quick-talking voice outside of the lineup. I turned around and saw a brown male in the group.

I quickly groped at my wrists to make sure said communicator was there. It was.

“I do! I knew that, obviously, which is why I asked _you_ to make sure _you_ knew.” I tugged my right sleeve down… and a shiver went down my spine when I saw the small stripes under the device. I pulled the sleeve back up a little to hide them.

“I’ll just… oh.” Fiddling with the buttons had brought up a contact list, which was full of names – names next to these kids’ icons. “You’re all already on here.”

“Yeah, because last year you sent us all ‘paranormal updates’ every day until Chunk here beat you up,” said the kid again. “It was _annoying_.”

“Hey, don’t throw me under the bus, man!” came the fat kid from earlier.

“Didn’t our bus crash?”

“ _It’s a metaphor!_ ”

As everyone started squabbling, I fiddled with the device and found a little ‘GROUP CHAT’ option. As I finished dragging everyone’s names into the group bubble and hit ‘CALL’, everyone else went silent as a dozen phones went off with equally-stupid dial tones.

“We’ll use this to communicate,” I said, pointing to where the device was. “You find something important, you tell us all. Got it?”

I took notice of the fat kid staring at a nearby squirrel.

“Anything that could _make or break this operation,_ ” I said sternly, eyeing him as he averted his gaze and looked down at the dirt.

“Now,” I finally started, itching to get inside and _find that damn portal_. “Placeholder, get through the test and scout out the audience room. Purple, stay outside and keep on lookout. Jerk, Beanpole, you two find some air ducts, weasel your way through them, and tell us if you see anything through the vents.”

I looked over the other twelve kids, my lack of ability in resource management becoming increasingly obvious.

“…Cake, go with Placeholder. Other purple-haired girl, go with quick-talker here and… distract the guards or something.” I noticed that one kid was still missing arms. “You, switch jobs with Purple and pretend to be dead. …Actually, Other Purple, Crash Guy, no guard duty. You, Chunk, and Purple, come with me. The rest of you… that’s seven… go take out the guards, sneak in, take out cameras…” I trailed off. _Good enough…?_

“Go!” I shouted, and all but four kids ran off.

“Alright…” I let out a breath, relieved that things were finally getting underway. “Other than the test, how else can we get in?”

“Uh, why can’t we just use the front dooor?” Purple asked.

“See, I assumed that most people would be suspicious of schoolkids crashing a bus and storming in en masse, especially without a field trip set up. It seemed safer to just sneak in.” _Most people that weren’t morons, anyw-_ _…COULD we have just walked right in?_

 _No, we’d probably get caught. People are stupid, but these people are paid to be_ less _stupid. They’d notice something was up._

As I looked back at the massive facility, I noticed a tangled mass of deep green cables attaching to parts of the inner areas. “What are those for?” I wondered.

As the group started muttering to themselves, my eyes drifted to a larger tube, off to the right of the structure. On the other end of it was a once-tall, horribly-burnt spire. A burnt spire with a large chunk of it melted away, revealing all its insides.

The group went quiet as I pointed to it. “There. We get in through there.”

 

* * *

 

“…Have you really never climbed a tree before?”

“Stop judging me, man!”

As the other three waited in branches up above, I pulled the fat kid up into the tree, threw him up to the others, then climbed higher as the others struggled to get a hold on him.

I shoved two leafy branches out of my face and pointed to the fixtures on the side of the ruined tower. “I’ll climb across those and get on top of the monitor tube above us, then I’ll pull you four up.”

“Why don’t we just climb it first?” said… what was her name, again?

I held up a forefinger and glanced at the wrist device. _M, Chunk, Gretchen… Zita. Zita? That’s a_ terrible _name._

“Because it’s smooth and thick and we’d just slide off,” I retorted.

Chunk snorted. “You said ‘thick’.”

He yelped as I whacked him over the head.

I took a deep breath. “Here goes…” I jumped towards a large shutter-filled vent, grabbing onto the thin shutters and cringing as they buckled slightly under my weight. I shuffled to the right, being careful not to drag my hand across the metal in a way that’d gash it, then wrapped a leg around the corner, slipped towards a tiny cove of machinery, threw myself past the taller pipe and grabbed a horizontal one, and pulled myself up to a small ledge.

I had the brief urge to look down, but didn’t, because that would be stupid.

I looked up at the other pipes and ledges. _This may have been a mistake._

Spotting a very long pipe, I jumped to my right and immediately wrapped my arms around it tight, sliding down and dangling from the bottom. Keeping my grip, I kept on climbing up.

At the top, there was another pipe to cross, and _finally_ I was on the monitor branch.

I looked down at the other four. “Alright, now stand on each other’s shoulders and hold tight to each other’s legs and I’ll pull you all up.” _I_ could _just leave you behind, but keeping you might help me out later – like if I need a diversion or something._

As they did as I said, I grabbed the top kid (Rita, right?) by the hands and-

“ _How_ are you gonna pull us up, Dib? You’re, like, the wimpiest kid in the whole skool!”

I hissed and flung the whole human-chain upward like a chain. As the fat kid got jammed behind two tiny spires, I climbed up the chain, clung to one spire, and yanked the rest of the kids up.

The tower hadn’t fared well… well, obviously, since it violently exploded and slagged everywhere. The top two floors looked like they’d been sliced in half, and from where I was, I could see the opening that must’ve led into the tube and then to the rest of the facility.

I sidestepped across all the rubble and melted ledges and didn’t even bother waiting for the others to catch up.

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

I sighed, looked down at the communicator device, and cringed a little when I saw ‘INCOMING CALL: GAZ’ displayed on the screen.

_…Oops._

“Oh, hi Gaz,” I said after tapping the ‘ANSWER’ button, strolling into the tunnel all the while.

She looked pissed, and she was… I couldn’t tell where she was. “Where are you?!” I heard a _thunk_ from her side as the video feed wobbled. “I was _supposed_ to help you get in there, and I’m _not_ going to let you find your _stupid_ portal yourself and cheat me out of getting those video games!”

“Hey, it’s not _my_ fault that school ends early when someone dies. It’s- aagh!” I yelped as someone bumped into me from behind. I ignored them for now. “Where are you, anyway?”

“Hold on.”

As I turned around and tried to settle down the lag-behinds, who were talking over each other to the point of unintelligibility, I heard a loud but muffled crash coming from outside and a very sharp noise coming from the communicator.

“I landed on some kid with a hat,” Gaz finally said. “Did you kill him before I got here?”

As the fat kid behind me started sobbing, I half-winced and looked down at the screen; Gaz was giving me an odd look.

“Who’s that with you?”

“Oh, uh, I kinda… threatened the whole class to help me out. With… blackmail.”

“Blackmail, huh?” She smirked. “You sure I can’t replace Dib with you?”

“No!” I barked.

“What does she mean, ‘replace Dib with you’?” said Nita.

I turned around to see the four kids staring at me.

“Would y- jus- …She’s just joking, guys.” As they appeared pacified, I whipped my head around and gave Gaz a wide-eyed glare.

I rolled my eyes when she gave me a sarcastic thumbs up. As I looked up, I saw that I’d arrived to a cluster of air vent entrances; I counted four. I turned around to look at the four kids following me.

_I could send one kid down each vent… I’ll send everyone but the fat kid – uh, Shunk or something – down three vents and just take him with myself down the fourth. I could throw him at a guard if I ever need to._

“Alright, everyone but Chuck here, each of you go down one vent alone.” As I directed the two purple girls and the other guy into some of the vents, I paused and turned to look at… whatever the fat kid’s name was. “You, go ahead of me.” I shoved him into the fourth vent.

I leaned against the tunnel’s sides and looked down at the communicator; Gaz looked impatient. “We’re at the rectangle with three windows. Where’s my best bet to find a portal?”

“That’s Research and Development. Field Testing is in the sector across from it. Hey, does your world have any sidescrollers?”

 _I appreciate your priorities._ “No names until I get back.”

She groaned and shut off the video feed.

As I kept looking over the device (I’d question how it was duplicated onto me in the first place if it wasn’t even a body part, but by that logic, I’d have been completely naked, so…), I noticed the group icon and tapped on it.

“Flan died but I’m almost in the audience! YAY!”

_“I’M STUCK!!”_

“I got arrested by the police. They gave me a cookie. I’m sad.”

“OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT-”

“Why are they showing off trees in here?”

I groaned and placed a hand over the device, muting the chat. Rubbing my right eye with one hand, I looked down into the fourth vent, noticing that it looked empty. With a sigh and a blink of my third eyelids, I clambered into the vent.

_All I have to do is stay out of sight and keep an eye out for anything that even vaguely resembles an entrance._

_…Oh, first off:_

I unmuted the chat and hissed a sharp “QUIET!” into the garbled feed; it immediately went silent. “Now, I want to hear important developments, and _nothing else_. What devices or presentations have you found?”

As I found a vent cover leading to an empty room, and slunk out and went from counter to counter, I heard nothing from the communicator until a minute later.

“There’s, uh… trees on TV today,” came a high voice.

I rolled my eyes and went back to skimming the items in the room; humanoid robot, humanoid robot, box full of scrap metal, humanoid robot, human spine… nothing.

“They’re spiking them.”

“...What the hell does _that_ mean?” I asked, exasperated.

“They’re, uh, spiking the energies.”

I groaned and slapped a palm to my face. “Tell me _in their words._ ” I peered out through a doorway, still seeing no one. _Must be lunch hour or something._ I slipped out into the hallway and through another doorway.

…I paused and tried to remember all the technobabble I’d ever heard.

“Wait, do you mean there’s an energy spike? A spike in energy levels? By itself? The scientists didn’t cause the spike themselves?” I didn’t even wait for a response; I shut the chat off and stared off into space, speechless. _Could this be it?_

My heart running a million miles ahead of my brain, I dashed off down the hallway in search of the production chamber.

I skidded to a stop when I saw a dozen guards standing past the corner, all huge and dressed in deep gray, and all holding the various kids I’d sent off. I bolted in the other direction before they even had a chance to react.

As I ran as fast as I could, I saw the fat kid as I rounded another corner. Without even thinking, I grabbed him by the arm, wheeling myself to a halt and yanking him to the floor face-first.

“I found the break room!” he said all muffled as he held up a donut.

As I saw my pursuers round the corner, I chucked the kid across the room and watched as all the guards were knocked to the floor. Wasting no time, I dashed past the bodies, then hit my wrist against my hip to turn the communicator back on as I frantically searched for an avenue of escape.

“Gaz! I need help reaching the show stage!” I came upon a stairwell, and jumped onto the rails and started sliding all the way down. “I need directions, _now!_ ”

The feed fizzled to life. “Get to the stairs and-”

“Waaay ahead of you!” I yelled as I leapt off the railing and vaulted over another set of guards.

“Take two lefts and just jump down the big gap.”

“What gap?!” I took both lefts, dodging any adult humans I saw as I ran for my life. Seeing a door coming up fast, I didn’t even bother to stop; I bashed into it and kept on going, only to get a metal rail to the gut. My momentum sent me over the rail, but I managed to cling on; only then could I see that I’d reached a ledge over a long and wide drop, full of lifts and machinery.

“How many floors down?!” I shouted as I dropped from the rail and grabbed as tightly as I could to the ledge below me.

“Three.”

I jumped down two more ledges, then ran for the nearest door and sprinted down the brightly-lit hall.

“Look for Stage B.”

Stage B, Stage B… I flicked my eyes to and from every single doorframe, looking desperately for the pathway I needed. _Stage F, Stage D, Stage-_

The lights went out.

 _C! B!_ Counting the few doors left as I slowed to a stop, I swung the door wide open. As my night vision swiftly settled in, I dashed down the path between masses of audience members as the cover of darkness shrouded both me and this insane coup. As I made out the silhouettes on the stage itself and spotted one monitor that glowed more erratically than any of the others, I made a beeline straight for my way back.

The crowd erupted. The doors slammed open.

The red lights flickered once more.

The communicator screeched and died.

And in the middle of it all, there was an otherworldly sea-blue light bursting from the center of the stage, and no one would get the time to comprehend who or what I was before I grasped for the unnatural wooden curvature and slammed it shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Shoutout to shadowofthelamp for reading all my chapters and giving really nice feedback in a clear and motivating-y way!
> 
> Looks like we're getting back to my Antiverse in the next chapter. It should have some... interesting developments...))


	6. Seeing Spots

In testament to the weirdness that spawned it, the tree had had a fully-hinged, door-sized chunk in the front of it, which led to a perfectly and smoothly hollowed-out room, almost like a treehouse… except I don’t think treehouses are inside the actual trees, so scratch that. It’s not like a treehouse.

Still riding on adrenaline, I’d clawed at the bark and found a small indent that let me pry the door open, which I’d consciously noticed more than I did the perfectly flat and normal _iron door_ on the other side of the interior.

As I leaned against the other side of the second door, panting heavily, using my weight to keep it shut, I finally allowed myself to calm down… and it was then that I fully took in the sight before me.

Before me was a tunnel of crystalline glass, about the length of a bus, angled sharply along the sides, with a black material lining the corners where the planes met. Beyond the glass – surrounding the tunnel – was a massive, swirling tunnel vortex, following the path to its end; a vibrant azure and cobalt blue, enveloping this chamber, feeling so close yet so far away. Its light illuminated the entire tunnel, and I stood there, entranced in its glow.

I wasn’t literally hypnotized, it was just… _wow…_

After a few minutes of no one trying to break through, I slowly stepped away from the door, then hesitantly stepped onto the clear glass floor that _lovingly_ provided a very clear look at possible death down below. I took another step, then another, walking faster and faster, keeping my my head up, and walked down the long corridor and up to the metal door on the other side.

Placing my hands on the cold handle, I pulled at it, opened the door, and…

…well, there was a tall, dirty, and tiny alleyway on the other side, with a bright and shiny mall hallway on the other side.

I let out a sigh. _It’s better than Skylands, but these_ places _are getting…_

_…Maybe one day I’ll get to see a part of these hub-worlds that aren’t either a mall of lunatics or an island of eccentrics. Maybe someday I’ll find a quiet little place, just for myself._

_I can dream, I guess._

As I walked out into the hallway, I could hear some very familiar yelling echoing from down the hall. As I looked down the hall, I remembered something; I knew where Eredwyn _was_ , but I had no weapons to take him _down_ with.

_I wonder if I can get something for that…_

Letting out another sigh, I resigned myself to impending annoyance and headed in the direction of the Skylanders’ voices.

“…he here?!”

“Data inconclusive. We appear to be running out of options for the search. Are you-”

“ _CAMO, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR BUTT AND HELP ME!!_ ”

“…Conversation overruled…”

As I rounded the corners and came to the main shopping area, I could see Whirlwind dashing everywhere, looking frantic and terrified, with a tired-looking Drobot and a stupidly distracted Camo not too far off. When she turned and looked in my direction, her eyes widened briefly in recognition, then she gasped and ran towards me.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!” She skidded to a stop as I jumped back. “Sir?? We’re looking for a bird-dragon with orange parts and- oh my god, what happened to Sunburn?! I’m sorry but I’m FREAKING OUT!!” She jumped up and let out a screech, her blue eyes literally glowing.

I paused. “…What?” _It’d be the right thing to tell her it’s me and that I’m okay, so she feels better, but… damn it, I want to stay under the radar for now!_

I chose to stay quiet.

She let out a deep breath and hung her head low, then looked back up at me with a weak look in her now-dimmed eyes. It felt cold of me, but I stayed resolute.

“If you find anything, ever… could you tell us?” she asked.

_…_

_…I have an idea._

“I’d help, but I can’t really travel that far. I mean… I _am_ pretty great,” I said, posing a hand under my chin in a lousy attempt to seem in-character, “but I’m only human, and I can only get so far.”

“Then come with us!” she exclaimed.

I cringed involuntarily, and she looked confused. “I… don’t like working in groups much.” _Hey, it’s true._ “Personal reasons.” _Also true._

Whirlwind’s expression turned neutral, then she looked to the ground in thought.

“Hey, we got some boxes of something in the mail recently,” came a deeper, feminine voice. My heart lifted as I saw the speckled black griffin walk out from a nearby shop.

 _Sonic Boom!_ Out of all these people, she was probably the best of all of them. (Not that that's hard to do, but… still.) She wasn’t around much, but at least she _tried_ to give a damn; all the times she put up with my ranting and raving testified to that.

“You said one had a useful thing, right? We could give it to the kid.”

_Wait, give what?_

“Inconclusive data…” Drobot muttered to himself. “I wish to study the device alone; the human child is a wild card, and would be disruptive to any data collection.”

_What device?_

Sonic watched his eye-plates flicker, then sighed and turned to me. “Sorry, kid.”

…Well, I never said she was very persuasive.

“That’s okay… I guess. Oh!” I tried to snap my fingers as part of the act, but I couldn’t, so it just looked like I was flicking them together really stupidly. “Could I visit your place for a bit? I’m starving and I…” _I need a lie!_ “…don’t trust any _alien_ restaurants.” _Nailed it._

“That’s racist,” said Whirlwind.

“…Proposition accepted,” said Drobot as Sonic nudged him. “Please proceed.” As he walked away and the others followed him, I bit my lip as my thoughts ran wild.

_This is gonna be close…_

 

* * *

 

“This is it!” cheered Whirlwind as the group arrived at a door, with me intentionally lagging behind. “The day Sunburn… um, hold on.” Whirlwind leaned to the side and sucked in a breath, then wheeled back around. “We got Drobot to give in and get us a fancy tiny home! The mall people were like ‘just pick somewhere to put it’ and I picked here, and… yeah.” As she pried the door open, my heart began to race as I thought about what I was going to do – and how I could do it.

After everyone passed through the doorway, I entered last, looking around at the… home.

There was a poorly-lit room to the right, with dirty blue walls and a ragged carpet. There was a brightly-lit kitchen across from us, which was a soft peachy color, and sat a little bit past the living room. There was a stairway and another door to the left.

It looked terrible.

“There’s the living room, and there’s the kitchen, and there’s the stairs, and there’s three bedrooms up the stairs, and there’s the door to the basement! …Ooh, I have an idea!” she exclaimed as she swung the door open and bounced down the stairs.

Always the opportunist, I followed her down as Drobot muttered behind us.

“I have some neat exercise equipment down here, because you can never be too fit!”

As the stairs curved to the right and I entered a dim and green metal-plated room, I could see Whirlwind’s rainbow-colored magic sparking before me. “I think, maybe, if you exercise reaaally hard and really quick, maybe you can get so strong that you can punch bad guys in the face! I don’t punch people, because I walk on my hands, but you have HAND hands!”

I looked at her, then over at the equipment, then at her, then at the floor… then at her again. “That sounds really impractical.”

“It doesn’t have to be! You could speed across the ocean like David Hasselhoff. You could crush someone’s skull with your KNEES. You could…”

As she skipped back and forth, rambling into thin air, I slipped around another right corner, looking for the device I’d heard about.

The first thing I saw back there was a long workbench along the left wall. On the far end, there were two cardboard boxes. Both had “FROM MURK” scribbled on them, with an avian footprint and “SUNDEC18” under the signature, and both had paper sheets stuck to them with a little bit of tape.

Making sure Whirlwind was still firmly distracted, I picked up the notes and read them:

_BASIC SUPPLIES  
POTIONS/FOOD_

I then read the second:

_MULTI-TOOL  
STUDY FOR LATER_

_Multi-tool…_ that sounded useful.

I switched both notes, and switched the places of both boxes.

“Hey, these supplies here… do you need these?” I asked somewhat loudly. My heart pounded harder; this was a risky gambit, and I _knew it_.

I felt my heart skip a beat as Whirlwind crossed the room in two bounds, almost getting right in my face.

“…Ohh, supplies! That might help you out, huh?” she asked, looking down at the nearby box with bright eyes. She picked up the mislabeled box and handed it to me, not noticing the soft sounds in place of jangling bottles. “Go ahead! I’m sure Drobot won’t mind. He’s more of a tech guy, anyway.”

“In regards to technology…” I grew even more nervous as Drobot came down the stars. “Plans have been prepared for the device. The child is not permitted to access it.”

“I know; I gave him the potions, you dork.” Whirlwind booped Drobot on the nose, then ran off.

Drobot paused. “…This has been made apparent.” He gave me a wary look, then started to walk towards the workbench.

_Oh no._

“Where’s the food?” I asked quickly.

“Please divert any questions you may have to Whirlwind,” he said, not even turning around.

“Who?”

Drobot paused, then turned around; even through the mask, I could tell he was getting impatient with me. “…Please follow,” he finally said, plodding over to the stairs.

I followed him up.

As Drobot walked towards the kitchen, and I exited the stairway, I remembered what my box was supposedly holding. _No need to waste time here - and risk more than I can afford._

“…Oh, right! There’s food in this box! Sorry for the hassle; seeya!” I piped up with; I then turned and ran out the door as non-suspiciously as possible.

 

* * *

 

I couldn’t think of many places to go, so I kinda just… had returned to the tunnel.

I sat in the middle of the corridor, the glowing vortex swirling around me, illuminating the heavily-taped-up box in its glow.

I stared at the box.

_…Well… First things first: I need something sharp._

I leaned forward and rested my chest and arms against the box, letting out another breath. Lost in thought, I saw my reflection in the glass floor, and absentmindedly stared at it. It was an odd sight; seeing me with the pale skin, the big glasses, the sharp black hair…

…

I leaned back, tilted forward, and sliced the tape apart with my hair-scythe.

After a pause, I allowed myself a little laugh at the absurdity of it – I cut something with _hair!_ – then regained my composure, looked down, and carefully grabbed the flaps of the box and opened it.

_Maybe I’m letting this luck get to me a bit too much, but I feel pretty confident about my chances… our chances. I feel good about this._

Inside the box, I saw tissue paper… a _lot_ of wrinkly tissue paper.

I pried the paper out of the way, felt something smooth underneath, and pulled it out.

My breath caught in my throat.

The domed device almost looked like a ladybug, with three big spots along the back. I couldn’t tell if the spots were blue or something else, so I curved myself around it, trying to block the blue light to get a better look at the colors. I tapped on the casing, and the spots briefly flickered sky-blue, then darkened again.

I slowly turned the PAK around, and saw a tiny note on the back; the tiny cursive was nothing like Drobot’s messy block-printing, so it must’ve been from the sender. All it said was “MODIFIED/SAFE”…

It could be _incredibly dangerous_ … but if it worked, it could easily be my best chance at saving Dib. So many possibilities laid inside that metal cover; I could put so many of them to use.

I mean, how many options did I really have?

_Modified, safe…_

…It was a risk I was ready to take.

Peeling the note off and sticking it in one of my pockets, I stood up, holding the PAK in front of me. I swallowed, then, making sure I was holding it upright, I moved it behind my back and centered it over my spine.

_Here goes everything…_

I pressed it against my back and tried to will it with a thought.

Never in my life had I felt a pain as sharp and intense as when those two cables plunged deep into my spine. I contorted backwards, claws in the air, and I had to force myself not to scream as the sheer pain knocked the air right out of me and left me collapsing to the ground. After less than a second, I turned extremely numb, and I could feel the PAK rumbling to life. My senses finally normalized, leaving me sitting there with either my biggest mistake, or my best decision, stuck to my back.

As I shakily stood back up, I thought of a test to see exactly how horribly I’d screwed myself over. I willed it to fall off, and it fell off… and that was it. No countdown, no horrible bleeding. No holes that could be felt on my back.

I picked the PAK up and let it reattach itself – it hurt a little, and I cringed from it, but it was far less horrible than the first time.

As a final test, I willed it to-

…the spider legs extended as soon as possible.

I let them lift me into the air.

_…_

_I’m ready._


	7. Kinesthetic Projection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (("adjective. The definition of kinesthetic relates to learning through feeling such as a sense of body position, muscle movement and weight as felt through nerve endings. An example of kinesthetic is the nature of a workout in gym class."  
> Essentially, kinesthetic projection - at least in the way Extra Credits put it - is when you lose awareness of the controller and use it almost instinctively, usually while also referring to the controlled object or entity as if it were yourself. For example, you usually don't say "the other driver cut in front of my car" - you say "they cut in front of ME". SCIENCE!
> 
> This is a filler/journey chapter, akin to chapter 3; it doesn't rank in my favorites, obviously, but it gets the job done, and it's hopefully entertaining to you guys.))

As I sat near the door to the mall, using my new PAK’s clock to see how long it was until night, I… didn’t do anything else. That was pretty much it.

It was _boring_.

Every once in a while, I’d access my PAK’s internal clock – apparently set to “EST”, whatever that was – and get the current time broadcasted directly into my brain. After an hour of just checking the time, I started peeking through the door every once in a while, too – just briefly enough to see if it was light or dark in there.

I didn’t _need_ to wait for lights-out, but I always felt safer in the cover of darkness, alone and undisturbed. There were probably a lot of things I never needed to do that I did anyway, but gut instinct had gotten me this far… (Also, I _really_ didn’t want to run into the Skylanders after basically stealing from them.)

 _There’s one thing that’d make this monotony more bearable: a game. Like, perhaps…_ Metroid Prime. _With actual thumbs and smaller hands, maybe I could actually play it_ myself _instead of just watching other people suck at it._

_I wonder if I could stuff a Gamecube inside this PAK and get it to work._

_...What if I could rig this PAK with a functioning arm cannon?_

_…_

_Okay, new plan: I’m not ready yet, I’m only half-ready. Once I get guns or something,_ then _I’ll be_ fully _ready._

_But for now…_

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until 11:14 PM that I looked out and saw a deep blue darkness.

I stood up, blinked my third eyelids a few times, and sent a small wave of energy into myself to make sure I was fully lucid and awake; ready and alert, I opened the door and then swiftly closed it behind me, scuttling up onto the ceiling with my newfound spider legs.

On a hunch, I willed my PAK to generate a night vision visor, without even being sure if it had one programmed in. I felt tiny wires extend under my skin, through my back and neck and face, all the way up to my glasses; almost as soon as I’d felt them, my glasses created a crisp, green-tinted, night-vision filter. I could see _perfectly_.

Pressing my body close to the cold material of whatever this ceiling was made out of, I made my way down the few halls leading to the… whatever that shaft thing was called. _The Shaft, The Fall… OH._

As I entered the TSF shaft, I righted myself and climbed up the few ledges that lead to Eredwyn’s door.

_Plan: either stay completely stealthy, or sneak up behind him and impale him through the spine or brain stem. While… being stealthy. …Right._

On another hunch, I willed a motion detector into existence, and my PAK… pulled out a bulky handheld device that looked like it’d be too loud to be worth it. _Okay… scratch that._ I stuffed it back inside.

Feeling confident otherwise, I slunk onto the ledge and through the unlocked door.

As I skirted through the zig-zagged hallway, I anticipated the worst; I heard and saw nothing, but it never hurt to be a little cautious.

_Not that I was entirely cautious this Saturday, but…_

_…I did the best I could with what I knew. I can’t fault myself for that._

_And somehow, for myself… it doesn’t feel like a loss?_

_…_

_But this isn’t about me. This is about Dib, and I am_ not _going to stop until he_ gets back home, _even if I have to stare down Hell in the eyes to get him there._

As I entered the main chamber, I quickly scurried up to the high and unlit ceiling, hiding there and peering down from up above.

The room was empty… and so was the gigantic canister on the other side.

_…Oh, god no…_

I dashed to the other side of the ceiling, staring down at the sheer _nothingness_ and trying to spot something, _anything_ that could clue me in to what happened while I was _gone_.

I spotted two doors to the left and right of the room’s far side. Skidding down the wall on the right side first, I dropped onto the floor and slipped through the door, finding… a big spherical capsule, lined with plush seats and _nothing else at all_. Dread surfacing in full-effect, I dashed to the other side of the chamber, still seeing nothing and no one and hearing no signs of movement, and darted into the leftmost door.

 _Finally! Something!_ There were a few tables in the middle and to the sides, and various papers were scattered across their surfaces.

I quickly picked up every single paper, looking at… _no. I can do better._ Instead of just skimming them and leaving them behind, I grabbed each one with the spider legs and pulled them all into my PAK, scanning every last bit of info and saving it. One paper had a rough humanoid anatomy sketch, another had lots of haphazard scribbles, another had various location names written down with “BET ISL” circled twice…

_Bet Isle? Bet Island? Is “Bet” short for something?_

_…I know. I know a world that has_ lots _of islands, and that world could have this island here…_

 

* * *

 

Back at the entrance to the Fall, I stood there, facing towards the large four-way intersection, looking and listening for anything that could get in the way. When I was sure the coast was clear, I turned to my right, looking over the _seemingly_ -featureless wall.

 _There’s a portal to the Hubverse at the top of that Fall. No one ever bothers reaching it normally, because it’d take_ hours _just to fly directly upwards and that would be insane; there’s a secret panel in here, with a little portal_ straight _to the top._

 _They probably could have just… put the Hub portal_ right here, _but whatever floats their boat, I guess._

_…They usually blast it open, though, right?_

I awkwardly folded my arms and let out a huff, disgruntled by my lack of blast weaponry. I wasn’t giving up, though. Not by a long shot.

I summoned the spider legs again, sending all four towards the center of the wall. As they clawed at the stone, one hooked itself on a tiny indent; quickly, the other four joined it, widening the gap just barely. Bracing my feet against the floor, I slowly but surely forced the two panels apart, the material creaking and shuddering, until the panels gave in to the pressure and were flung to the sides.

_…Oops?_

Seeing the oval-shaped portal before me, I ran through it, quickly using the legs to press against the other side’s walls from both directions and raise myself back upright. Looking around at the small and murky room before me, I tested the floor with my foot to make sure it wasn’t slippery, then gently dropped to the floor when I was sure I felt safe, retracting the legs.

Naturally, in a world messed-up enough to be a shopping mall catacomb floating in a void, the hall and ledge at the top of the Fall were infamously slippery – and _of course,_ the top floor had _no railings whatsoever._ That’s life, I guess.

I glanced at the door to the slippery hall, then looked across from it; past some dusty desks, a few empty filing cabinets, and at least one chair, there was an air vent cover, sitting above the furthest desk. It was just _barely_ big enough for me to fit through. I knew the portal to the Hubverse was in that vent. I didn’t know _why_ it was in that vent. Just more… _this-place-ness._ I guess.

I walked up to the opening, climbed over the desk in front of it, then crawled into the tiny vent and made my way through it. At a sharp corner going upward, I struggled briefly to turn and contort my body through the turn, then re-extended the PAK legs to push my way to the very top, right through the tiny blobby purple portal.

As I passed through the portal, it felt like ethereal liquid against my skin, a layer half a foot thick. On the other side of the portal, I could already feel the cool and crisp air of the night, and I sucked in a deep breath, letting it all out. It felt pure. It felt _good._

The vent passage on the other side was almost non-existent; it lead to an opening the size of a large crate, and just a few feet away was a small square door. Pushing the door open, I took in the night-time sights of what the people here called their Center Island; a little place magically plucked out of another world, back when _this_ world was made out of chaos and garbage.

I _really_ don’t want to think of a place more chaotic than that mall.

Briefly turning the night visor off, I could tell that the moonlight and undiluted star-scape provided just enough light to see fine with. I retracted the wires and set the visor away.

The area before me was a tiny valley, surrounded by cliffs and at least two waterfalls (…where was the water coming from?). There were a few trees here and there, a bunch of ledges to the sides, and at least one tiny creek that split the valley in half.

I walked a short distance to the end of the ledge I was on, then sat down next to a tree and looked around, thinking.

 _I know there’s a tech lab near the high end of the island. If I go there, I could find and equip an arm cannon to my PAK. While I’m there, I can also find someone who knows what this “Bet Island” is. Once I know where I’m going, I can either find a portal or an airship or a seaship or_ something _to take me to my destination._

_Then… there’ll be hell to pay._

I swung my legs back and forth a bit, then jumped down and landed on the soft grass below. I walked through the valley, passing tall slopes, a tree, and a few holes in the ground. I vaulted over the creek with the spider-legs, climbed up a few short ledges, passed a large and monstrous statue, and climbed up a small cliff that lead to a narrow pathway.

The path was very curvy, going to the left and right over and over, with at least one opened gate and a few fenced-in ocean overlooks between turns. At the end of the path, it lead into a circular valley - one with large tropical trees looming over it. _Getting closer…_

A gust of cold wind came in from further down (further up?); I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself as it passed by. As the gust grew stronger and warmer, I looked straight up on an impulse, and saw that a spaceship the size of two cars was slowly descending towards me.

Like a deer in the headlights, I stood there, legs frozen for a few seconds, but I grabbed ahold of my senses and darted out of the way.

The ship wobbled, like the pilot was hesitating, then dropped fast and hit the ground with a _thunk_. Back pressed against the wall, I watched as a bloblike creature floated out of it, looking back and tapping on it with what looked like itty bitty nubby- _…oh._

The blob I saw before me (which had spotted me and started floating closer) was none other than the weirdest person… thing… I’d ever seen in these worlds: a sapient five-cored scientist Metroid named Bob with the voice of bug-bird, who I recognized from the time where someone introduced him poorly and my knee-jerk reaction was to violently set him on fire. Because, well… Metroids are usually non-sapient life-leeching monsters and… well…

_…I’m starting to question which one of these worlds is the weirder one._

Bob hesitated for a second – probably thinking I’m Dib and not knowing what to do with me – then said something in a squeaky screechy “voice” that just _barely_ resembled words, with his inner mandibles twitching back and forth as he did… but I didn’t realize it in time to process what he was saying. (It’s… a learned skill.)

“…Could you repeat that?” I asked.

He nodded quickly, then repeated what he “said” a bit slower. “I was testing this old ship again and I saw you down here. Are you, uh, looking for something..?” he squeaked, in a voice that I can only describe as being the exact opposite of a voice.

“Two things, actually,” I responded. “One, I want an arm cannon extension for my… _backpack._ Two,” I said, pulling out the circled paper, “I want to know what and where this ‘Bet Island’ is.”

Bob grabbed at the paper with one of his outer mandibles, curling the mandible a little and somehow keeping a grip on the paper despite a noticeable lack of hands, and held the paper in front of his… face? “Betrayal Island? That’s to the northea… uh, northwest. Yeah, that.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll go see what I can find,” he peeped, floating off quickly before I could say anything else. I watched him go, and saw him floating towards a small green temple; he opened a panel on the tiny interior and floated into an unnaturally-deep passage, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

_I still need a way to cross the ocean, but at least I’ll have firepower now. Not literal fire, but… well, sort of? There's a fire beam, so…_

Bob suddenly floated right in front of me, holding a little capsule in his outer mandibles. “Here’s one of them,” he said, dropping the capsule into my hands. I looked down at it; it looked like an energy tank – so, uh, like a thick cylinder with rounded edges - but dark gray and opaque, with yellow highlights as rings embedded around the side.

I extended a spider leg and pulled the capsule into my PAK. Bob hurriedly floated away as my PAK informed me that there wasn’t enough room for the beam. I folded my arms and stared at the sky as looked through whatever I had that I could replace. I found a jetpack setting for the PAK legs, and I set it to overwrite each jet with a beam slot.

I looked over and saw Bob whooshing back over to me, but he stopped early as he let go of another capsule, and whooshed away again as momentum flung the capsule over to my feet. I jumped back a little, then bent down and picked it up; this capsule had purple highlights.

I knew all about the Prime trilogy beam weapons – there was the rapid-fire element-less Power Beam, the electric tri-shot Wave Beam, the slow white Ice Beam, and the medium-slow but powerful as hell Plasma Beam – oh, and a few others from the other two games. _I… guess I’m a pretty big fan, heh._

I heard the tiniest _thunk_ in the distance, and I looked up to see capsules being thrown out from… some sort of tiny door in the cliffside next to the temple. I didn’t even know this place _had_ a side-door.

I walked on over as half a dozen capsules hit the ground, one by one. “Oh yeah… I only have room for four of these,” I muttered dejectedly, looking down at the others. I picked up the white and red capsules and jammed them into my PAK, setting them to install as Bob floated back out of the door.

“Thanks,” I said, looking up at him. He extended a mandible for a handshake; I stared at it warily, holding my hands to myself, and he looked down at it and pulled it away once he probably realized _oh, right, life-leeching Metroid parts._

“Do you need help getting there? I know a shortcut,” he asked after a moment of awkward silence.

 _Hit me. …No, that sounds dumb._ “I’m listening.”

For a second, I questioned why he was so trusting to just hand me four technomagical guns and let me do who-knows-what with them, wherever and whenever I wanted, but… then again, I _do_ look like Dib. _I mean, I sided with the kid out of weird meta-knowledge, too, so I’d be a hypocrite for questioning it._

_…I feel like such a brutal person. Stealing, withholding information… I know it’s bad, and it’s wrong, and I’ll probably get screamed at once I’m found out, but…_

_Not now. Have to focus. Have to make it in time…_

I followed Bob as he floated back to the temple-thing. He poked at the wall to the left of the entrance and slid a panel out of the way, then inputted some sort of code. I backed up quickly as a flash of light erupted from the ground, reflexively shielding my eyes with one arm. As the light died down, I moved my hand away; there was a whitish-blue blob of energy sitting right in front of the temple’s entrance, giving off little sparks that floated upwards.

“Jurassic Jungle’s in the middle of the island. Oh – watch out for lava there.”

“Thanks. …Hey, one question,” I asked before I stepped into the light. “So this portal connects there… did Betrayal Island ever betray this one somehow? Is that where you got the name?”

“Nope. Whoever named it thought ‘Betrayal’ was a cooler word than ‘Corruption’. Nobody betrayed anybody.”

I couldn’t help but stare at him. “…That’s _stupid._ ”

Bob shrugged.

As he floated back into the temple, disappearing out of sight, I took a deep breath and stepped into the light, invisible forces pushing me upward and sending me spinning and fizzling into the jungle.


	8. Bird out of Hell

My face hit the ground with a _thump_.

I groaned, and propped myself up with my arms into a kneeling pose, rubbing my head with one hand. Quickly, I looked up and surveyed my surroundings; a torn-up metal fence to my right, crumbling stone walls to my left, dark grass all around me, stone rubble behind me, an old and short stairway up ahead. No people in sight. No enemies. No creatures… other than little silver lizards. Probably harmless. Safe.

I gave a sigh of relief.

As I shifted over and started to get up, one lizard scurried over my leg, licked its eyes, and just… _stood there_. I froze, staring at it, then lunged down and… smashed its head into a paste with my nose instead of biting its head off. _…Success?_

I sat back up and wiped the dirt and blood off my face. _Okay, rundown: Food, check. Water?_

I tapped into my PAK’s nutrient supply… only to be informed that it’d been supplying my innards with goop ever since I put it on. _Oh… uh, thanks… me. Part of me. Supercomputer fused to my spine… which is a part of me. Me._

 _…Anyway; water-food mix, check._ I gently pried the lizard’s thin metallic skin off, then clawed off the muscle and guts and swallowed them in one gulp. _Extra food, check._ I tossed the bones aside. _Weapons, check. Spider legs, check._ _Me still alive, check._

_…Still alive…_

I had my PAK organize and prepare every single life-support extension it had, rerouting all of them into one of the spare storage chambers.

I was ready.

Wasting no more time, I ran up to the ancient-looking stairs and scaled them, then came to a crumbled bridge. The only chunks left were just barely supported by pillars… all above a fast-flowing river of lava, which cascaded endlessly from a nearby volcano. Using my PAK legs to give me a boost, I leapt from platform to platform, not stopping until I reached the safe and solid ground on the other side.

Other than the lizards, no one was nearby.

I climbed the steps leading up to a giant, overgrowth-covered, dull-green temple. At the top of the steps, in front of the entrance to the temple, was a gap full of lava – and still no one else in sight.

Since I was just a few feet away and still had my face intact, I could easily guess that I’d kept my immunity to all fire when I was transformed. But as a test…

I pressed my hand to the lava; the gooey rock hissed as I touched it, but my hand was perfectly intact. I noticed that my sleeve hadn’t caught fire, so I tilted my arm a little and rubbed it against the lava; it also stayed intact. _Maybe some of my… me-ness has rubbed off onto it? Somehow?_

_I’ll just pretend I understand it and leave the science for later._

As one final test, I extended a PAK leg and prodded the lava with it. It slowly started turning white-hot from the heat, but internal scans showed the structural integrity hadn’t been hurt at all.

 _So I’m immune to lava damage still. That’s… great!_ As I got up and walked across the lava, which gave way _just barely_ and hissed with spurts of fire, I was feeling more and more confident.

Also, I was definitely going to shove Dib into this spare storage chamber once I found him because otherwise he’d die _horribly_.

The tunnel leading into the temple was dark and extremely humid – which, while it didn’t bother me, I could still tell how much it should have.

Judging by the red glow coming from the end of the curving path, I guessed there would be more lava… and I was right. As I rounded the corner, I slowed down; _what if someone sees me in the light? Eredwyn, or someone else…_

I peered out from behind the corner. No one was there.

As quietly as I could, I dashed across the tunnel of lava.

The foreboding stone halls past the lava took a hard curve to the left; I kept close to the walls, slinking as quietly and carefully as possible, as aware of my surroundings as I could be.

“…deal will be fulfilled most impressively.”

I heard his voice.

I pressed myself close to the wall and the ground, then… _no, I know better._ Instead of peering out with my large and noticeable head, I pulled out a spider leg and formed a tiny camera at the end of it, then poked it around the corner ever so slightly.

I crawled back and watched through the video feed.

The room was huge, with a large statue holding something up at the far end, and three smaller statues holding up platforms along the side of the room – I could see a golden yellow gem, a vibrant green gem, and a deep purple gem embedded in their bases. In the center of the room was a large stone disk – a stone table? – and I could see Eredwyn standing over it, looking up at the larger statue.

“You haven’t failed me yet… _yet,_ ” came another voice. _Who was that?_

Something orange flew past Eredwyn’s head – a bird? It flew out of sight, and Eredwyn grimaced in its direction.

_Well, great. He’s someone else’s errand boy. How high does the ladder go? What’s next, a god monster after twenty-dozen more bosses?_

“I assure you, this specimen has been most worthwhile,” he responded to the other… strangely without his British accent. _Wait... was he faking his accent around people to_ look _evil?_

 _…Wow. He really_ is _a cliché loon._

Eredwyn then strolled over to the large statue, leering up at it. “I’m sure that you would love to know your fate before it befalls you, my friend… but alas, that’s for me to know and you to never… oh. Excuse me for a minute,” he said as he backed up. “TORRUS!”

A wingless, child-sized dragon, shriveled and gray with empty orange eyes, ran out from behind one of the side statues. With a harsh flick of Eredwyn’s tail, the smaller dragon darted to the other side of the room. I could hear the _tiniest_ spurt of fire; the dragon then ran to the green gem and sent a second spurt of fire – barely enough to even be called _fire_ – at it. The gem lit up in response, flashing repeatedly.

As the dragon kept darting back and forth, I slid my camera out just _barely_ a bit more, and…

In the center of the biggest statue’s chest, trapped inside a crystal fogged up with slurry, was _Dib_.

I looked back to Eredwyn’s shriveled slave, and I could easily guess _just what he’d do_ if I didn’t stop him.

The smaller dragon – Torrus? – finally spit an ember onto the yellow gem, and the room began to rumble as the final gem flashed. I saw Dib disappear from the center crystal, and in a sharp spurt of orange fluids, he suddenly appeared in the center of the stone table, gasping and coughing for breath.

_I need a diversion to get in there safely._

Looking through all my PAK’s features – legs, organ-taker, cameras, grapple – I found a tiny multi-legged drone. I pulled it out and sent it scurrying along the interior walls, activating its inbuilt camera and looking for some place where I could set off a loud noise. It scaled the walls, climbing past all the ledges and panels…

Through the other camera, I could see Eredwyn pulling out the pipe from all those days ago, using its white sludge to pin Dib’s limbs to the stone.

My drone found a hall far above, and I sent it down the hall as fast as it could move. The short hall lead to an open area, with more lava flowing down from another volcano (or was it the same one?) and a bridge leading to a far-off area.

I wedged the drone into a crack in the stone and set it to explode.

As the second camera feed cut off, Eredwyn jumped at the explosion and the cracking and crumbling that followed. “Torrus, stay here!” he barked as he leapt from pillar to pillar and ledge to ledge and down the upper hall.

After Eredwyn was gone, I dashed out from my hiding spot and ran towards Torrus, grabbing him by the neck and beak and suffocating him until he passed out.

I then ran towards the stone table, pressing my hands against it as I jerked to a stop. I had to climb on top of the table to get to Dib, who was perfectly centered atop a sun-shaped engraving. The poor kid looked delirious; he was covered in a semi-clear, golden-orange sludge, he could barely open his eyes, and he was clearly struggling to breathe. I felt a sharp pang of sympathy. _I need to get him out of here, fast._

I grabbed a lump of fleshy white goo, which had partially solidified by now, and tried to claw it apart.

“Where am I…?”

I froze.

I looked down; Dib’s eyes were half-open, and his head was leaning in my direction.

_Shit, what do I do?! “Hello, I am your sort-of-clone, nice to meet you, please don’t freak out”?!_

“In a dream,” I lied, as I kept clawing at the ball of sludge. “You’re lucid… kind of.” The strands of the goo would bend, but they wouldn’t break; instead of trying to tear them apart, I switched to prying the stuff off of his wrists so I could slide him out. “I’m a manifestation of your subconscious,” I added.

Dib groaned, then coughed hard, some globs of blood leaking out of his mouth. “Right…”

He let out a weak cry as I finally pried the organic cuffs away from his left wrist; the skin was red and irritated, but it wasn’t damaged enough to start bleeding. I started pulling away the other cuffs – the one on his right wrist with my two hands, and the ones around his legs with two PAK legs each.

“…believe someone is, or was, trying to break in,” echoed Eredwyn’s voice from far away.

_Shit!_

“Who was that?” asked Dib, straining to look in the sound’s direction.

I pulled his right wrist out of its cuff, then covered his mouth quickly. “Quiet,” I hissed. “ _Please._ ”

“I ‘believe’ that is _your_ fault, dear chap,” came the unfamiliar voice from before.

I’d finally manage to dislodge Dib from all four cuffs. I picked him up and held him close, ready to run.

“Well, that is rather- _HEY!_ ”

I fled with Dib in tow-

…and was sent tumbling alone onto the hard stone. I got up quick and turned around; a yellow force-field ring was blocking Dib from leaving the table. I ran back, grabbing the poor kid again as something landed behind me. I turned around and saw Eredwyn glaring at me, with his orange-feathered bird ally fluttering down after him.

My mind went into overdrive.

“You have truly proven _most bothersome_ , _little one,_ ” Eredwyn snapped in his old accent as he approached us.

_If the field only blocks Dib…_

The finned parrot landed on Eredwyn’s back. “Perhaps you should have killed him, you incompetent buffoon.”

_…which means he must be connected to it…_

Eredwyn whipped his head back and forth. “Well, _perhaps_ I wanted a _replacement_ to cover our _tracks!_ ”

_…presumably by magic…_

“Why are you doing this?” came a weak and weary voice next to me; I looked at Dib, who, while he looked dull and weak, was at least coherent enough to hold his head up.

Eredwyn gave a slow smirk, then slowly strutted forward, leaning his neck down so that his head was right in front of us; in response, I shifted my hold on Dib to two of my PAK legs, forming my arm cannon around my free right arm and pointing it straight at Eredwyn’s smug little snout.

“You’ll never know, my dear _human friend,_ ” he sneered.

Dib let out a huff. “Human… right…” he grunted lowly.

Eredwyn raised his head back up, his eyes darting between us and the bird as he struggled to hold a smile. “Why so droll?” he creaked.

Dib pressed his arms against me and stared me in the eyes. “Why am I even still dreaming…” He coughed. “…about this? I thought I came to terms with this… two months ago.” He paused, glancing at the floor once. “…Okay, _maybe_ there’s still some lingering-” He coughed again.

“Maybe… you should _explain_ for the _others,_ ” I finally said, jerking my head towards the two draconic monsters. Dib seemed to get the hint.

He spat up another glob of blood and slime, then turned to glare at the guilty-looking Eredwyn and the suspicious-looking bird. “You _just_ so… _happened,_ ” he struggled to breathe, “to get Membrane’s _lovely_ little _failure_ of a _test tube baby._ Good… _job,_ ” he spat.

Eredwyn shivered. “I’m almost _certain_ you’re _overreacting-_ ”

“You…” came a low, stoic growl. Eredwyn jumped, and the bird calmly floated away from him, hovering in front of the entrance. “You… _failed…_ to _get me…_ **a _PURE HUMAN?!_ ”** it finally roared, shaking the entire temple.

“B-but…” Eredwyn stammered, backing up towards us with his tail between his legs. “He looked purely average, I-I assure you!”

I took advantage of the distraction and wheeled around, charging up a Power Beam shot.

“I… now, there’s no need to get _upset,_ my friend!”

I fired a Super Missile at the center statue’s crystal.

It shattered.

Dib screamed and convulsed, going limp in my arms; I could still feel his heartbeat, so he must’ve just passed out. With my PAK legs, I gently but quickly pulled him into my improvised life-support chamber, closing the PAK securely after he was inside. I turned around and…

Eredwyn spun around and stared me down. _“Do you see what you’ve…_ you’ve…” He trailed off as he saw me staring past him, wide-eyed and speechless. He followed my gaze and turned back around… and his ears drooped as he saw it.

The small bird was swelling in size, faster and faster, its body tearing through layers upon layers of flesh with a sickening wet sound, every part of its body curled downward and together as it grew larger and larger. As it finally stopped growing, towering far over the both of us…

It whipped its wings aside, now a gigantic draconian hellbeast, covered in bare and bloody skin, and gave a banshee’s cry, with a warped maw full of rows of serrated fangs glistening and salivating and pointed _right at us._

I ran.

The spider legs shot out of my PAK as I jumped at the wall; I climbed all the way to the exit at the top, having no other options for escape. They _fwished_ back in as I took off running down the hall, running as fast as I could, as I heard the crumbling of stone and the roars of hell as the monster scrambled after me.

I ran out into the open and onto the bridges over the rivers of lava below; I ran into the second temple and through a shattered hall of lava and stone, as the heat swelled and gouts of fire came from below and the monster advanced on me.

I ran into the open, onto a bridge over the jungle below, and I ran past the stone platforms and the masses of trees and I ran and…

I came to a giant gap, and there was nothing but a sea of lava and a volcano across the uncrossable abyss.

I had nowhere to run.

…

I took a deep breath, and as the far-off roars got closer, I knew running would do nothing.

It was time to fight.

I raised my right arm. I charged the cannon.

I whirled around, and as I saw it barge through the thicket of trees and advance on me, teeth bared and ready to kill, I stared death in the eyes and fired a Super Missile right into its throat.

The hell-bird screamed in agony and lost control of itself, tumbling forward towards the chasm. Thinking fast, I grabbed onto its webbed tail, and as it crashed onto the edge of a ledge on the side of the volcano, I jumped off and ran into an ornately-carved tunnel. I ran into the depths of the volcanic cavern – a place where flight would do it no good.

I wasn’t escaping. I was _dragging it down to my level._

I ran down the hall; I jumped across a pit; I ran past ornate pillars and totems; I ran into a chamber filled with beams of sunlight, the light of dawn finally bearing down on the world.

I came to a bridge, and I turned around, standing my ground. I switched to the Wave Beam, and I readied a charge; I raised the barrel of the gun as I saw the ragged beast coming down the path from the left, and fired as soon as it came to the end.

It screeched as the shot hit it in the eyes, which spurt out sickly-yellow blood upon impact. I fired shot after shot of half-charges as I backed up preemptively, hoping the electric charges would stunlock its brain. It reared its head back, roaring, then dragged itself along the ground with its wings – far faster than appearances would suggest.

I dashed across the bridge behind me and onto the next platform; as an added measure, I equipped the Plasma Beam and fired at the bridge I’d crossed, letting it burn and collapse. This failed to deter the beast, which merely grasped across the gap with its curled and gangly wing fingers; I ran across another bridge and onto yet another platform and fired at it from a distance.

I fired a shot at its wings and fingers, realizing after I’d fired that I still had the Plasma Beam equipped – which I’d avoided in case the monster resisted fire – but as I saw it recoil in agony as its membranes were scorched, I kept firing and firing as it screeched and burned.

Propped up over the gap with its arms on the other side, it couldn’t keep its balance as its arms became useless, and it plummeted face-first into the magma below, sinking slowly but surely.

I stood there with my hand on one knee, panting and trying to catch my breath-

…and the winged monster burst out from below, struggling to clamber onto the platform with what remained of its limbs, wailing as its flesh sloughed off in hissing, boiling chunks.

I equipped the Ice Beam and fired a charged shot at its head, switched to the Power Beam, and, as it desperately clawed at its frozen face, I finished it off once and for all with a final Super Missile.

Headless, its neck oozed with bubbling sludge… then it fell back into the abyss for the last time. The beast was _dead._

 

* * *

 

There was… a pretty big path of destruction left by the Hellbird. I could see it from across the lava pit, but I couldn’t go back _across_ that pit, so I just… went forward, assuming the realm would circle back at some point.

I didn’t see Eredwyn anywhere. Maybe he died. Maybe he escaped. I hoped he was dead, but…

It didn’t matter now. While I would have loved revenge, Dib was safe, and that was all that mattered. There was no reason to hunt Eredwyn down… although I will gladly kill him if I ever see him again.

I finally found a portal back, past some broken fences and a pool of lava. The ivory white arch was decorated with a few red gems, and a number of cracks and other marks, but it still worked.

I stepped into the clear ripples of the portal and faded into elsewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((For those who are curious, [here](https://invaderspaceboy.tumblr.com/post/174542627933/this-isnt-iz-related-but-im-rly-proud-of-it-so) is what Hellbird looks like. (Big thanks to Spaceboy for the artwork!) I also have an actual ref image drawn by myself on my computer, but I mean... these are better. |D
> 
> Also, in case it seems like this fic is gonna end with loads of threads left hanging: it's nowhere near done yet. ;P))


	9. Night Trap

The journey back was… quiet.

The few months spent after landing in their hub back in August had taught me that the Island inhabitants tended to sleep in, so even with the faint light of dawn above me, I was able to cross Center Island alone and unnoticed.

The upper levels of the Mall were empty, but as I exited the portal in the wall into the normal level, I could see large, bustling crowds of various monsters. My instincts told me to _run like hell_ … but I could lose myself in the crowd. Less of a chance of being spotted… right?

For the first time in my life, the thought of being surrounded by dozens of others felt… reassuring.

I quietly slipped into the masses and made my way to the alleyway.

As I passed through the metal door, went through that familiar glass hall, and came to the small wooden chamber on the other side, I placed my hand on the curved door’s handle.

_Here goes…_

I opened it slowly and peered out into the dim light.

I heard crickets.

I pushed it open a little more and looked around. I saw a fence, some sort of metal rectangle with a door, lots of grass… and a house, with a purple-haired kid sitting at a table outside, with a pale red sky above and no science facilities in sight.

I opened the door all the way and stepped out into the dawn, confused.

“…How did I get here?”

Gaz grunted. “I asked dad to put the tree here,” she said without looking at me, then took a bite out of a hot dog. “He said to tell you to stop bringing your friends over.”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Right…”

I walked past her, pulling the dimly-lit house door open and walking into what seemed to be the kitchen. I crossed into the living room, looking for the stairs, finding them off to the side; I turned and headed on up, my hand brushing against the rail.

I headed up those stairs, coming into the little hallway with the doors along the side; I glanced through the doors, and I found a deep blue room, one covered in posters and bits of technology.

Dib’s room.

I walked over to his bed. I opened the PAK, the spider legs carefully pulling him out of the chamber and placing him in my arms. He was out cold, breathing lightly, no longer coated in sludge…

The weight of everything that’d happened was finally hitting me.

It doesn’t hit you until then – you think that people like this are fictional, and _specifically them_ because it should be impossible for someone to get through _so much_ … and then you see that person before you, and… and it _hits you_ : this is _real_. They really made it, and you made it, and maybe… maybe there can be more to life than just hiding away from the world.

If the world burns you, you can take it back by force – and you can still feel _alive_.

I couldn’t help but give a quiet chuckle. “I bet I’ll never see you again, will I?” I whispered. “After all that’s…”

I swallowed.

“…This is it, isn’t it?” My small grin had faded.

_Is it?_

I gently laid him on the bed, then let go and stepped back. I took a breath and bit my lip, standing there.

 “…Good luck out there,” I finally managed to say, breaking the silence… and with that, I whisked myself out of the room.

As I passed through the kitchen and exited the house, I saw Gaz still sitting there. I remembered our deal, turning to her as she stood up and watched me.

“There’s a sidescroller series known as Metroid, with a first-person spin-off series. Look up Zero Mission, Super Metroid, the Prime Trilogy, and Fusion – they’re _amazing_. Oh, and avoid Other M – it sucks. Like, it’s a _stupid_ kind of bad,” I said, waving my arms a bit for emphasis. “Get a Gameboy Advance and a Wii and you’re- ...oh yeah, uh, there’s also Metroid II… I think that’s it.”

She grunted and started to head for the house door.

I took in a breath and let it out. “And…”

She stopped and turned around, eyebrow raised.

“…Make sure he doesn’t get hurt,” I said, quieter this time.

With nothing more to be said, I slipped away and left through the other door.

 

* * *

 

The deep blue light rippled around me as I slowly paced back and forth in the middle of the glass hall, my hands stuffed into my trenchcoat pockets.

After all that was said and done, I was remembering how I had nowhere to go.

I couldn’t go back to the Skylanders; they never felt like a permanent respite anyway, but after theft and lying, they were _definitely_ no longer an option. I had no real home; I’d spent the last few months half-sleeping on a small shore of washed up artifacts next to Center Island. Skylands was a disaster, I had zero place in the Earth I’d just left, everything I knew in the Hubverse was either crowded and chaotic or a vast unknown mess…

“All I have is myself,” I whispered as my PAK whirred faintly. “Just me and myself…” I gave an awkward chuckle as I patted my PAK. “Heh… if only you could tell me what to do. I’d appreciate that.” I couldn’t help but grin again.

I heard a sudden creak.

My expression fell and I whirled around as I heard the Antiverse door open, ready for whatever was… there…

The silhouette had large wings held high and a single sharp horn.

_Oh no_.

Whirlwind leapt at me, pinning me down before I had a chance to react. “Sunburn?” she cried out, looking distressed… then her ears flattened as her distress turned to anger. “ _Sunburn?!_ ”

I tried to squirm free. “I-”

“We know it’s you!” she yelled, shutting me down instantly. “We found the room and the cameras and- oh my god, OH MY _GOD!_ ” Tears were running down her face as she glared down at me. “ _It was you all along!!_ ”

I strained my head and looked past her. I saw two others approaching – Drobot from the left and Camo from the right. Drobot was expressionless, hidden by his mask, and Camo looked baffled and possibly frustrated. Behind Camo, I saw a purple silhouette and a pinkish wing that I knew belonged to Cynder.

“Well, this just got interesting,” Cynder remarked.

Whirlwind whirled her head around. “SHUT UP! JUST _SHUT UP!_ ”

“Whatever you say,” she retorted.

Drobot walked closer, his long gangly neck leering directly over me. I was breathing roughly and heavily, adrenaline running through me; my instincts told me to attack them and run like hell, but another part of me kept me from moving, terrified of what could happen.

“I believe this can be negotiated,” Drobot said in his deep monotone. “Please release the child.”

Whirlwind shot a bewildered look at him. “But after all he-”

“We discussed this prior,” he responded coolly. “I request that you let me handle this.”

Whirlwind stood there, nostrils flaring, then stepped away and kept her distance, looking at me with a snarl and a glare that could melt ice. I quickly got to my feet, holding my right arm out slightly, shaky and ready to bolt at any moment.

Drobot stepped forward, and I took a step back.

“Analysis indicates we have gotten off on the wrong metaphorical foot,” Drobot said to me. “We are willing to forgive your transgressions and provide support and assistance, if you will allow us.”

I didn’t budge. “How can I trust you?”

Whirlwind started to step forward, but Drobot blocked her with one of his wings. “Whirlwind’s actions do not reflect on all of us. We are more than willing to aim for a diplomatic resolution.” He gave her a look, and she averted her eyes, looking down at the floor.

I held up a trembling hand. “Just this once. I get supplies… and then I leave. Forever.”

Drobot nodded.

I took a deep breath and lowered my hand.

Drobot gestured his head towards the exit, and the others shifted to the sides of the tunnel. “Follow us,” he said, as he walked away; Cynder slipped ahead of him and was soon gone, Camo closely followed at Drobot’s heels after giving me an odd glance, and Whirlwind stalled at first but quickly ran past them both.

“And you promise you’ll let me go?”

As the others kept going, Drobot turned to look back at me. He nodded.

“You _promise_.”

“Yes.”

We stood there, watching each other and waiting; he eventually turned away and walked out through the door, disappearing into the Antiverse.

I took a deep breath and followed far behind. _I’ll be free soon enough…_

 

* * *

 

As I came up to the door to their new little home, I felt a wave of dread rise up inside me but quickly pushed it back down. The door was open, and Drobot was waiting to the side of it, watching me intently with his cold, expressionless eyes.

“Welcome to our garbage dump,” Cynder said as I entered. She dramatically waved a wing to the side as she reclined on a couch, grinning. “It sucks.”

“We’re not gonna live here forever. It was cheap…” Whirlwind mumbled as she passed by her. “We’ll go back one day…. I think.” She looked around, gazing up at the ceiling. “We can make it work.”

Cynder rolled her eyes and propped her head up with one hand. “Good luck with that. You guys are on your own here.”

“At least we _have_ a home,” Camo said as he walked out of the kitchen, looking over at me as he did. “Unlike _some_ people.”

_Good to see you’re as pleasant as always._

I rested my hands in my pockets and stared back at him. “I’ll find my own someday,” I said, eyebrows furrowed, unfazed as he walked past me.

“ _Where_ are you gonna go, Assburn?” Camo snarked, circling behind me; I moved away as he passed in front of the door, with Drobot still watching me from the entrance. “You don’t _have_ anywhere to go, do ya?”

“I’ll find something. Anywhere away from here.”

“Yeah, right!” he said; I backed away as he kept walking towards me. “You’re a _jerk_! No one’s gonna let you live anywhere if they find you!”

“Back off,” I hissed. “ _Now_.”

I bumped into something, wheeled around, and saw Whirlwind blocking my way. Something clicked in my head, and I turned to look towards Drobot, who had shut the door and was slowly coming closer.

“You are a dangerous and unrepentant wild card,” Drobot said coldly. “For the safety of everyone, you must be contained. Permanently.”

Everyone started closing in on me.

I didn’t hold back.

I lunged for Drobot, launching the PAK legs everywhere and aiming for whatever would bleed. I felt several sets of claws try to pin me down as I slashed at Drobot’s throat, taking a chunk of skin with me, and I squirmed and flailed and screeched and thrashed about and swung the sharp metal legs from side to side as they all advanced on me.

I felt something sharp and thin jab itself into my side, and I gasped and stabbed at everything I could as the world started to fade.

I kept fighting. I refused to go down.

I couldn’t.

I…

…


	10. Pulling Strings

I’d woken up in a barred-off bedroom. Pure black with just a square bed and a mirror-desk.

My PAK was trapped by a shell. I broke it off and tried everything I could. I screamed. I yelled. I tried breaking the door down. I searched every wall for a vent big enough.

Nothing.

Food was slipped through a slot that closed too quickly for me to take advantage of. I refused to eat anything. I refused to die from poison. I didn’t want to die.

Day two, I refused to sleep. I tried not to, but I was tired. I collapsed.

My PAK kept me safe.

When I awoke into another day of nothing, I had the PAK send me into a hazy state. I was only half-lucid and lost track of time. Walking around in a dreamlike state, falling into half-consciousness when it came time to sleep. I was aware enough to be awake but not enough to perceive any details. Not enough to comprehend captivity.

It kept me from going insane.

I slowly paced back and forth in the pure-black room, my hand brushing up against the bed. It felt more and more tangible as I paced around; my PAK was phasing me back into lucidity, as someone was knocking on the door and I couldn’t stay vulnerable.

It didn’t feel like it’d been forever, because I didn’t know how long it had been. It didn’t feel like eternity, but it felt like…

…Four days. It had been four days.

For the first time in a while, I smiled. _If you were a person, PAK, I would thank you._ Without it, I… I don’t even know what would’ve happened.

The first thing I felt was a soft pressure, but then I could consciously grasp that it was cold, and the sensation of the texture soon followed… and as the sensations faded in, so did all the emotions as well.

As I became fully aware, I blinked my normal eyelids and my extra eyelids as I looked up towards the thick metal door, which groaned as it opened, letting new light filter past a large silhouette.

My smile was long-gone.

I crossed my arms and walked up to the six-horned purple dragoness. “What do you want?” I asked bitterly.

Cynder didn’t look bothered by my reaction. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know that-”

“I don’t care.”

She reared her head back, looking a little offended now. “What?”

“I don’t care,” I repeated, keeping my voice low to not alert anyone else. “I’ve been trapped in here for half a week. I don’t have the energy to deal with anything, unless you’re here to say ‘you can go free now’. Got it?”

She looked rattled; her mouth was curled as if she was irritated, but her eyes gave away a sense of vulnerability. “Hey, I’m not the one who did this to you-”

“But you sat back and let it happen. You’re just as guilty as they are.”

As I glared at her, she eventually averted her eyes, looking… distressed? She walked away to the left, leaving the door wide open.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I quickly stuck my head out through the doorway, and I saw Cynder disappear down a set of stairs; apparently the room I’d been trapped in was on the upper floor, where I assumed all the other bedrooms were.

_Hey, maybe if I’m lucky, my screaming will have kept everyone else awake._

“Where are you going?” I heard Whirlwind’s voice call out. I froze.

“I’m leaving,” Cynder’s voice responded.

 _Oh, good, she didn’t see_ me _._

“Why?”

“Because I’m done with this shit. I’m not getting involved with you guys anymore.”

“What did we do?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, dipshit.”

“I… you don’t have to be a jerk about it!”

“Newsflash, asshole: we’re all jerks! _You’re just as bad as I am!_ ” Cynder yelled back. “You’re not little miss perfect, you’re a hypocritical bitch! You can’t preach fluffy love and friendship when you lock people up like animals! How is it that _Kaos_ gets let free over and over, but some punk kid stealing a _stupid fucking backpack_ lands him in your little makeshift asylum?! I’m done enabling your bullshit! I’m done being okay with this! Fuck it! I’m done! You can kiss my ass _goodbye!_ ”

I heard a loud _SLAM_ as I leaned over the railway. Cynder was gone.

 _I have…_ no _idea where the sudden change of heart came from, but… thanks? I think?_

_…I’m still stuck here._

_…_

_Well, thanks for nothing, I guess._

Whirlwind looked at the spot where Cynder used to be. Her head drooped down; I heard her sniffle, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw her look up. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but they soon turned sad again as her ears fell flat.

I heard a door down the hall open. “What’d I miss- h-hey, he’s out of his room! DROBOT!!”

_NO!_

“Just let him go!” Whirlwind yelled up at Camo before I could react, her voice starting to crack. “We’ve done enough.”

Whirlwind backed up as the basement door opened.

Just the _sight_ of Drobot walking out filled me with a mix of misery and rage.

“If you cannot be reasoned with, then I will provide a compromise,” came his robotic voice. “He may leave the room, but he may not leave the house. He still must be contained.”

I saw gauze wrapped around his neck, and I had to force myself to not grin when I saw my handiwork.

Whirlwind looked away from him. She glanced up at me, and then her gaze fell to the floor.

My grip on the railway bar tightened. _I need to find a way to escape this place somehow – and get as far away as possible. After that doesn’t matter; just as long as I get_ out _._

“I will return to my laboratory. Please keep watch.”

_Fighting my way out would dig myself deeper, so I can’t do that. Sneaking out when everyone else is asleep? Unless Drobot has the IQ of an ant, that wouldn’t work. Finding an air vent big enough to crawl through may or may not work, depending on if this house follows Antiverse logic or Drobot logic._

_…This could work._

“Why are you staring into space, dude? Are you gonna snap and kill us or something?”

“Camo, that’s mean…”

“It’s Sunburn, dude! You never know what to expect from this guy!”

_New plan: I’ll act peaceful and normal while I scope out the nearby area for an exit, then I’ll flee when their guards are down. They’ll lock the doors, but who says they’ll think of the vent system?_

_He’ll catch onto me if I look normally… but if I use my PAK to do it, he’ll be none the wiser._

_I can do this._

Ignoring Camo, I calmly walked down the stairs, then looked over at Whirlwind. She was trying to avoid looking at me, as if she was trying to violently catapult her consciousness out of the room or something.

I _would’ve_ felt sympathy for her, but she _was_ one of the people who locked me up, so naturally I still hated her guts and would do so for a _while_.

“Do you have any food?” I asked sort-of quietly. “I’ve been living off this PAK for the last few days.”

_That’s it, Sunburn. Come off as weak and approachable. Make it look like you’ve cracked._

Whirlwind plodded past me and into the kitchen, keeping her head down. “I’ll get you some soup…”

I followed her. “Thank you.”

 _I can_ do _this._

The kitchen was a pale peachy color. A circular table with five chairs sat in the center, and the edges of the bedroom-sized room were coated in cabinets and countertops (and one fridge). I sat down in one of the chairs, gently resting my hands on the table in a ‘hold hand with other hand’ position, trying to look all passive and polite.

Whirlwind pulled a can out of one of the bigger cabinets, pulled a dark-ish pink bowl off another shelf, grabbed some sort of device out of a… whatever the little pull-out thing in the counter is called, and started opening the can with it.

“What kind of soup is it?” I asked, trying to make small talk.

“Tomato,” she said meekly.

As she prepared the soup, I had a brief flash of anticipation, still wondering if the food could be poisoned… but Whirlwind wasn’t Drobot. She was emotional and finicky, but she was straightforward. The other day had made that pretty clear.

Besides, if the food they could _all_ get to was poisoned, they’d all be dead already. What had been thrown at me was suspect, but this felt safer.

After about a minute, she placed the bowl, now full of red fluid with a white straw, down in front of me. “I didn’t heat it up yet,” she said. “I don’t know if you like it warm or cold.”

“Either is fine.”  I held the bowl closer and… _wait_. “Would you like to share it with me?” _Perfect. If it_ is _toxic, then she’ll go down with me. Just in case_.

She looked surprised, but she went and grabbed a mint-green bowl; before she could open another can, I held up the bowl to get across that I wanted to _share_ it. She got the hint, putting the second can down, coming over, and letting me pour half of mine into her bowl.

Reassured that we’d both either live or die horribly, I fiddled with the straw and began to drink.

It was… actually kind of nice. After days of nothing, having _anything_ was a massive relief… and of course, it lasted nowhere near long enough.

“…Do you want more?” Whirlwind asked, halfway through her own bowl. Her voice sounded hoarse.

I nodded.

In total, I downed two more bowls of soup. As I did, my PAK quietly scanned the entire room, looking for vents and other exits. There were some small vent slits near the floor, and something bigger behind the fridge, but nothing I could escape through yet.

“Do you wanna watch TV?” I asked, hoping to scan the living room.

Whirlwind nodded. “Sure…”

I got up and went into the living room, sitting down on the worn-out couch. I reclined and felt my PAK softly whir against my spine; it felt comforting, even if it _was_ an extra brain clinging to my spinal cord.

As Whirlwind sat down on the other side of the couch, my PAK informed me that the area around the stairs could also be scanned, as it was in the open area nearby.

_I could send a probe down to the basement whenever the door’s open, but not when Drobot is around; he’d catch on to anything tech-based too fast. Camo is suspicious of me, so I’d have to have him distracted. Whirlwind, I can distract easily…_

The scanning radius was passing through the basement door… but how-

“I have returned to assure optimal courses of action are being taken. Has Sunburn’s behavior displayed anything troubling?”

Drobot was standing there.

 _No! Please don’t catch on, please,_ please _…_

“Oh, no, he’s being… really nice,” Whirlwind said to Drobot, quieter and quieter.

Drobot walked forward, standing in the opening to the kitchen. He was watching us. I suppressed any hints of fear, any hints that I was planning something, _anything_. I couldn’t risk him catching on to me. I couldn’t.

“What do you wanna watch?” Whirlwind eventually asked me.

I shrugged. “Maybe a nice movie?” I added ‘nice’ to make it seem even more like I’d been broken into submission.

Judging by the look on her face, it was working.

“I’ll… I’ll go find the Follow That Bird DVD.” She got up and crouched down in front of the small boxy TV, pawing at the small shelves under it.

I turned to look at Drobot. “Do you wanna watch with us?”

“I am.”

_Yeah. I noticed._

“Don’t forget me!” I cringed as Camo jumped and _thumped_ right onto the couch, sitting right to my left.

 _Farewell, happiness._ I scooted as far away as possible.

“What are we watching, Whirl-Whirl?” he asked in his ever-obnoxious voice.

“Follow That Bird. It’s a really cute movie.”

As Camo blabbered on about I-don’t-really-care-what, the scan results came back: there was a large vent cover on the high ceiling above the hallways, and considering the distance between here and the rest of the Antiverse, I could easily escape through it. All I needed to do was wait for an opportunity to run.

But for now, I would watch a colorful kids’ movie and pretend that everything was fine.

Whirlwind sat down between me and Camo. “You’ll, uh, you’ll… you’ll really like this movie.” She shuffled a bit. “This… this place won’t be all bad. You’ll like it here. It’s gonna be okay.”

It _will_ be.


	11. The Escape

The next few days were monotonous.

Wake up, eat breakfast, meander around, put up with Camo without punching him in the face, scan the vicinity down to every last detail, keep Drobot from getting suspicious – oh, and act friendly around Whirlwind. She kept going out and getting things like board games and movies, trying to make me happy with them. Two days ago, she came back with a game called Sorry.

I couldn’t help but feel that was intentional.

During my routine scans, I’d detected a few cameras, attached to the upper corners of the walls. As long as I could stay aware of their vantage points and keep them from picking up on too much, I should be fine.

It had been… a week? A week and a half? A whole lot of time spent being as passive and approachable as possible.

“Camo, Zap, you will be staying here in order to keep watch on Sunburn. Analysis indicates there is only a nine percent chance for a containment breach. …Please refrain from burning the household down.”

It finally paid off.

“Aw, come on, man! We have to stay with _him?_ ” Camo whined, as Drobot and Whirlwind headed out the doorway.

“Hey, it can’t be that bad, right?” piped up a slimy blue dragon, about Camo’s height. He had webbed feet, green frills, and a shiny gold harness. “We can handle _anything!_ Right, man?”

That was Zap, someone I only ever saw when he was with Camo, running around and doing something-or-other… and I’m gonna be honest – I had literally no opinion of him. Camo had brought him over earlier today for… some reason. Maybe they’re friends or something? (…Does Camo have friends?)

“Yeah, bro!” Camo said back, punching Zap’s fist with his own fist. “You’re totally right! We can handle this!”

“Make certain to keep an eye on Sunburn. I would like to make a visit to Skylands to acquire additional technology for my experiments, and I have selected Whirlwind to travel there with me,” Drobot stated. As his gaze drifted past me, I couldn’t help but notice how the only person sympathetic to me was the very one he was removing from the situation.

_Thanks, asshole._

“We will return in a few hours. Do not let anyone else in.”

As Camo kept complaining under his breath, Drobot and Whirlwind passed through the doorway and closed it shut with a _click_. Once they were gone, Zap awkwardly walked over to me, wide-eyed. “So you’re _really_ Sunburn, huh? Wow, what was that _like?_ ”

“What?”

“Like, you got turned into that guy from Invader Zim! What’s it like, being Dib now?” He seemed genuinely curious.

“Well, it’s…” I drifted off, my voice getting quieter. “…I never really thought about it.” I didn’t realize it until then, but… literally no one else had brought it up yet.

I wondered why.

“I dunno what you were talking about earlier, Camo,” Zap said. “Sunburn seems cool!”

“Yeah, he _seems_ cool. But then he lies, breaks into your house, steals stuff, tries to kill you, and acts like nothing happened, and _then_ you know what he’s _really_ like.” As Zap’s grin faded, Camo stepped in front of me and looked me in the eyes. “Look, Sunburn, you may be all happy-go-lucky with everyone now, but I know you, and I _know_ what you’re thinkin’. You’re not gonna ruin this for us, got it?”

I feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ … you’re not gonna ruin _the most awesome and wild house party ever!_ ” He jumped up, startling me, and ran off into the kitchen with Zap, who went right back to his happy state and flopped after his friend. “Last one to the ketchup is a limp cucumber!”

_I… what?_

The two of them raided the fridge, pulling out a small cake and squirting ketchup all over it. I sighed.

_You know what, I’m… I’m gonna try to let my brain make a tactical retreat from trying to… understand him…_

_…Wait, is he planning to pin this on me?!_

“I have an idea!” Zap said, while Camo started eating their gross mess. “You have, like, a REALLY big bathtub, right?”

“Yeah! Why?” Camo asked, trying to keep cake from falling out of his mouth with his tongue.

“What if we flooded it and then poured it down the stairs and made a _huge_ waterfall and surfed down it?”

“That… sounds _AWESOME!_ ”

The two of them bolted up the stairs, with Zap tripping over Camo’s tail once.

“You watch Sunburn, I’ll fill the tub!”

As Camo disappeared into the bathroom and Zap watched me from the railing, I got to work.

After what’d happened in the ruins, I only had two drones left. My PAK didn’t seem to have a way to generate more – not that I knew how poofing up metal out of nowhere would even work, but… Since I only had two, I’d planned to send one down into the basement and one into the TV vent. _I hope this works…_

As I was already somewhat near the door, I lightly thunked against the wall with my back, slid down to the floor, and sat down with a sigh, making it look like I was just exasperated with Camo and Zap’s antics.

“You alright down there, man?”

“I’m… tired.”

The PAK quietly ejected the drones from one of the lower ports, which would be unseen by the living room’s camera. One moved down the door, while the other slipped up my trenchcoat and hid near my left hand.

As it was small and thin, only having a tiny main body and four little legs to deal with, the drone slipped right under the door and scurried down the stairs into the basement. I made sure it stayed close to the shadows – which wouldn’t be hard, considering the strangely-dim lighting the basement had.

Something knocked on the exit door.

“Who is it?” I heard Camo wheeze.

“Oh, uh- Sunburn, Drobot said we’re not supposed to answer the door while he’s gone.”

 _I can’t even_ open _it, dumbass. He locked it._

Making sure the drone was secure and ignoring the knocks on the door, I got up, walked over to the TV, and kneeled down in front of the small shelves, gently leaving through the available movies.

“Whatcha doin’?”

I looked up at Zap, and I could hear loud grunting and metallic groaning coming from the bathroom.

“I’m looking for a movie to watch,” I lied.

“Ooh, pick Finding Nemo!”

“Okay.”

As I propped myself up against the setup, I pretended to slip forward, letting out a grunt and ending up with my hand over the large vent cover. Quickly, the drone leapt from my sleeve to the vent, skittering inside and remaining unseen.

As it disappeared into the darkness, I reeled back with a small cry of pain and looked over my hand, gently rubbing my palm where it banged into the metal. It had to look like an accident.

“ _HUUURRRK!_ ” The grunts and groans got louder; I looked up and saw Camo shoving a large white rectangle down the hallway, with bits of water sloshing over the edges.

“…Don’t you have surfing magic or something?” I yelled up to Zap.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Oh yeah, I do! …Oh _man!_ Camo, I can use my water magic for myself, and _you_ can surf with _this_ water! It’ll be, like, double! I didn’t even _think_ of that! Sunburn, you’re a genius!”

“Uurrrgh…” Camo slumped against the tub.

As Zap rambled to Camo, who was noticeably out of breath, the scans from both drones were coming back; the scans only gave me vague shapes and nothing else since I’d ditched the cameras, but that was all I needed.

The vent behind the TV bent up and then led right over the mall, and the basement had several breakables that I could use as a distraction. I positioned the basement drone behind some sort of large object, ready to explode it when I needed to.

As the other drone began to slowly weaken the vent cover-

“ _RIDE… THE… LIGHTNING!_ ”

_Oh, great-_

A massive cascade of water shot down the stairs, rushing into both the kitchen and the living room. I squawked as the flood knocked me off my feet and sent me tumbling across the room, slamming up against a wall.

One of the drones lost contact.

“TOO MUCH! _TOO MUCH!_ ”

I saw Zap spiral across the hall as the living room flooded halfway to the ceiling.

“TURN YOUR MAGIC OFF!!”

“ _I’M TRYING!_ ”

My PAK legs shot out of their own accord, clinging to the closest structure. As they anchored me to a wall, I could still feel the pull of the torrent of water. Almost as soon as it started, the water began to disappear, and I dropped to the floor with a wet _thud_. I coughed and got to my feet, my PAK legs retracting away.

“Whoa… I think I amplified the water!”

As Zap rambled to Camo about water magic or something, my attention was focused on one terrible fact: the drone in the vent was gone. It would take me days to regenerate another one, and by then my chance would be long-gone.

_…Could I break the cover off myself?_

I fake-staggered next to the TV, letting my PAK scan the vent cover. It was already loosened halfway.

_It’s worth the risk…_

“Oh, crap…” Camo looked around. “The floor is _soaked_.”

“Oh man, what do we do?”

“You go get all the towels and throw them everywhere; I’ll watch Sunburn.”

“Okay!”

As Zap flopped his way up the stairs, Camo stood _right in front of me_ and stared directly into my eyes.

I held my arm with my other hand, smiling meekly. “Personal space, please?”

“No.”

I had my PAK take a note: _remind me to punch him in the face someday. Hard._

“We only have three!” Zap ran out, leaned over the railway, and threw a bunch of fluffy stuff behind Camo. They hit the floor with a _flump_ and startled him.

“Go… spread those somewhere,” Camo finally said. He turned and looked me in the eyes again. “I’m gonna call Drobot. Sunburn’s creeping me out.”

_Time for drastic measures._

I slid tiny wires under my skin and up into my tear ducts, zapping them t- _aagh, that hurts!_

I cringed and sucked in a breath as stinging, mucus-like tears started to drip from my eyes. I let out an ‘I’m trying not to cry’ sniffle and forced my breathing to get shaky. “ _Why_ are you so _mean to me?_ ” I cried. “I never did anything to you!” I took in another shaky breath. “I…”

Camo backed up; he looked _really_ uneasy. “I, uh… oh man…”

Zap looked to his friend. “Camo, I’m starting to feel bad about all this…”

“L-look, I have no idea what’s- …now, uh, s-stop crying, uh…” Camo picked up a wet towel and handed it to me; I took it and pretended to blow into it, taking in another breath and letting more tears fall.

Camo winced. “Aw, geeze…”

“Camo, I think we should leave him alone for a bit.”

“…Yeah,” Camo muttered.

_Their guards are down. Good. But they won’t go far as it is…_

A loud crash came from downstairs, followed by a rumble that nearly threw me off my feet.

“Holy f- what th- what _was_ that?!”

“Did the water do that?!”

“Drobot’s gonna be _pissed!_ ”

“Language!”

“ _I KNOW!_ ”

The two of them threw the basement door open and ran down the stairs.

As they finally disappeared, I extended the arm cannon over my forearm and switched to the Nova Beam. I slammed the metal door closed against the metal walls, shrunk the end of the Nova Beam, and quickly melted the edges of the door and the wall together. It was cruel, but it would keep them from chasing me down.

I had to do this.

I ran back, grabbed at the bars of the vent, and ripped it off the wall, throwing it aside and lunging into the opening. As I heard them start to bang on the door, I leapt up the ascent with my PAK legs, took a hard right, and then darted down the path as fast as I possibly could.

I was gone.

 

* * *

 

I’d learned a few things about this world in the few months I’d been here, and one thing was that the Antiverse’s system of oversized air vents shifted around on a regular basis… that, or no one bothered to map it and that was their excuse for getting lost.

From what I’d seen, they might have been right.

The vent system was a tangled mess, and I went down any direction I could, not caring where I ended up… well, as long as it wasn’t back in that damn house. I had my PAK track the general path I was taking; the neon-colored mental lines showed I was far, far away, at least.

The paths had taken me to a large, circular area, one full of stores and stands, with a tiny train playing bizarre music on the floor directly below. It was vaguely familiar, like I’d been here before. Not for significant, life-changing reasons, just… me having been there at some point.

I was hungry, so I approached a little food stand and managed to pity my way into getting a free pretzel.

Despite being surrounded by a giant crowd, I still felt vulnerable in such a large and open area, so I passed through a doorway and ended up on a ledge overlooking a tiny fake beach. The ledge had a long wooden chair, along with a simple metal railway at the edge, and the beach down below looked dirty and was full of craggy rocks. Past that, it was a gigantic hall, with a half-working hologram of a sunny sky trying to cover the white walls, and the line of water went on all the way to the tiny speck that was the end of the hall.

I was leaning against the railing, my arms crossed and resting. A breeze brushed up against my face, and I took in a breath and let it out.

I felt lost.

The water rippled down below; a gangly bird-like monster clambered out of it with its huge legs, its head-bits and tiny bat wings flopping around as it simply walked up the wall, over the railing, and onto the ledge.

 _Ah, the freedom to be surrounded by Hubver- …Antiverse absurdity. I can’t believe I’ve missed this…_ I couldn’t help but smile a little.

The bird leaned over me from the left, staring down at me with its big googly eyes. “Have I seen you before?” it asked in a hoarse voice.

I backed away. “Um… no?”

“Oh.” It walked away. I watched it leave the room.

Letting a hand brush against the rail for a second, I turned and left. _Might as well get out of here…_

 _There should be more vents nearby… I could cut through the vents and get back to the Fall. I could get back up to the Hubverse. Flee to some remote island. Get somewhere_ safe _._

Antiverse vents were durable enough to move around in, but they sure as hell broke easily… _and_ they healed rapidly, so in under a minute, there’d be no sign that I was ever here. I’d just climb along the outside of the vent and halls, find a vent near the Fall, claw on through…

I walked back out into the large shopping area, surrounded by a crowd of various aliens. I extended the PAK legs and swung down to the floor below, walking into the giant, empty hall that the train often went through. There were a bunch of vents near the edges of the floor here; I just needed to find a good one…

I could hear the strange bird asking “Have I seen you before?” to someone else in the distance. I shook my head. _It’s a_ fun _place, but I don’t wanna live here._

My PAK alerted me to fast footsteps. I turned around.

My heart skipped a beat.

The person before me was human-

-right in front of me-

“I knew it! I _knew_ Gaz was hiding something from me! She said I was just imagining things, but I knew I wasn’t! Everyone at school was like, ‘What happened the other day?’, and I didn’t remember any of it, so that _must_ have meant that _something_ happened!”

Dib was right in front of me, and he was _livid_.

“When I followed Gaz and found this place, people here kept asking me, ‘Haven’t we met? Where’s your backpack?’ and I KNEW something was going on! And I was RIGHT! _A clone was taking my place!_ Some sort of… Irken doppelganger?! _What are you?!_ ”

I took a step back. He took three steps forward.

“I want answers! _Now!_ ”

I ran.

“Hey! Get back here!”

I _ran_.

I ran as fast as I could down the curved hall, with Dib right on my tail. I quickly dashed down a smaller offshoot hall, running far away… and then I slammed right into the railway of the Fall. I froze and tried to think of where to run as I heard Dib’s voice behind me.

“… _stop!_ ”

“There! He’s down there! I heard him!”

_NO!_

I looked up in horror at the other voices, and I saw Drobot and others jumping off the ledge far above. I fled back down the hall as they soared down towards me.

I crashed into Dib and we both fell to the floor.

As we scrambled to our feet, we both turned to face the green-and-brown armored dragon that landed on the Fall’s ledge. My expression was that of petrified confusion. Dib’s was bewildered anger.

I don’t think Drobot could see my PAK.

He whipped his wings and shot a bladegear at us… and Dib cried out as it cut through his side, falling to the ground and clutching his heavily-bleeding wound.

Quickly, I whipped out the Nova Beam and burned his wound shut. He screamed. My heart pounded.

Drobot pinned me to the ground.

I saw Dib looking struggling to get up. He looked at me.

Something blocked my vision. Drobot’s wing slammed into my head.

Everything went dark.


	12. In the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((HELLO! After months of AGONIZING rewrites and MANY CHUNKS of cut text, I have FINALLY crawled out of the abyss and FINISHED this /ACCURSED CHAPTER/, because it is now at a STATE in which I am PROBABLY SATISFIED WITH IT!
> 
> Also, uh, happy Singles Awareness Day or something!))

“Counterpoint presented: this is what I wanted you to observe, Whirlwind. Entities like Sunburn seek nothing but lies and manipulation. Measures to increase emotional defenses are suggested.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Your anxieties have been noted. Social guidance will be provided; following it will be heavily recommended.”

I couldn’t move.

Heavy metal covered _every single part of my body_ – it covered everything other than my face and legs, holding me up just above the floor. My legs were forced into a kneeling position; I was hanging low, but not low enough to sit right. My PAK was completely covered up, and the last few times I’d tried sending something through my body, I’d been zapped.

“Without proper containment procedurals, Sunburn will continue to rebel. Basic measures are insufficient, as has been demonstrated to you today.”

“You knew this would happen?”

The room was a cube, made of nothing but dark black metal, with one tiny light hanging overhead. My head was surrounded by metal, some sort of rubber was wrapped around my mouth, my arms were tied behind my back…

“It was a test to see if your position was correct. It was not.”

“…Right.”

I struggled against the restraints again, straining as hard as I could and getting nowhere. My head strained to the right, and I could just _barely_ see the edges of silhouettes out of the corner of my eye, just… _standing there_.

“Chances of Sunburn being successfully rehabilitated are being calculated… Result: less than three percent chance of success.”

Whirlwind muttered back. I couldn’t make out what she said.

“Initiating acquisition of permanent containment measures,” Drobot’s electronic voice droned.

I tried to cry out.

“Proceeding to-”

“ _Waaait_!”

_That voice…!_

The running footsteps skidded to a stop as I heard the sound of wings flapping. “Don’t go in there!” Whirlwind said. “He’s dangerous!”

“You can’t... stop me!” Dib yelled. “I won’t… I won’t stop until… until…” As he ran past me, he slowed to a stop and stood there with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “ _Man_ … This place… is _huge_ …”

I tensed up as I saw Drobot walking towards him. _Turn around! TURN AROUND!_

“You would not _believe_ what happened to me today,” Dib wheezed, as he finally stood upright. “First there was this one guy who…” As he turned around and saw Drobot, he visibly tensed up, and his eyes widened in sheer _anger_. “Hey! You’re the one who _shot me_ with that _blade_!”

“An honest mistake,” Drobot said simply. As I felt my face curl into a snarl, he turned around and looked back towards the entrance. “Rerouting discussion; initiating learning experience. We must go now, Whirlwind.”

“H-hey, _wait!_ ”

As Dib ran after them, I heard a scuff against the floor, followed by a door-slam and a _thunk_. With the door closed, I was left with no light other than the tiny bulb overhead… and I was left with _Dib_.

I shivered.

I saw him walk into my field of vision, rubbing the side of his face. My heart beat faster as he looked up at me, his expression turning dark.

“I don’t know what’s going on here between you and that… robot dragon…” He trailed off. “Or maybe it’s a cyborg?” He shook his head wildly. “No! I can’t let myself get distracted! Who are you, and what are you doing disguised as me?!” he yelled, jabbing a finger at me.

I tried to cry out, but the muzzle muffled anything I tried to say.

Dib’s arm and expression slowly fell as I struggled in vain. “…You can’t actually _say_ anything, can you?”

I shook my head as much as I could.

He stood there for a moment… and then he got down in front of me and pulled the rubber mass away from my mouth.

I took in a deep breath and exhaled, relieved. “Thank you…”

The room started to rumble.

I sucked in a breath. “My name is Sunburn,” I said. “I was-”

“Wait, _Sunburn?_ ” he said, cutting me off. “That’s an… odd name. Especially if you’re supposed to be _me_ ,” he said. “My name is Dib, by the way,” he offhandedly added, holding out his hand. “Paranormal investigator!” he said proudly. He looked down at his hand, and slowly pulled it away, glaring down at me. “But you already knew that, _didn’t_ you?”

_…Kinda?_

I bit my lip, thinking. _How do I word this… “I was turned into you by someone”? Someone, someone… His name was Eredwyn, he was a dragon, he threw me into- no… I was following him, he caught me,_ then _he threw me into a portal. I ended up in your world, came back for you- aah!_ I jolted back when something waved in front of my face – it was his hand. My vision refocused and I saw him still staring down at me; I could tell he was impatient.

Hell, I would be too, if I were him.

“Sorry, I was thinking…” I said. I let out a breath. “Okay. Whole story-”

“Wait, you’re actually telling me?” Dib looked confused. “Huh. Usually when I interrogate people, they never tell me _anything_. I mean, sure, there was that… Chickenfoot guy, but the _true_ paranormal are a _lot_ less cooperative.”

The room went quiet. I think he was expecting me to say something, or he had nothing else to say, or...

 _Dragon, follow, capture, portal…_ “There was this dragon named Eredwyn. He was acting suspicious, so I followed him. His lair had an anti-magic field. It caught me off-guard, and he grabbed me and threw me into this portal, and, well… I was turned into you,” I said.

“So you’re not a normal doppelganger, or even a shapeshifter! You’re a clone by conversion! You’re just a victim of whoever transformed you!” Dib looked amazed… but his expression faded a little and he refocused on me. “…Who did you say did this, again?”

“Eredwyn.”

“Right! Well, don’t worry, Sunburst or whoever you are,” he said. “We’ll find him again, and _then_ , we’ll do… _something_ ,” he said, shaking a fist.

I lifted my head. “I stopped him already.”

“Wait, really?” He looked stunned. “What happened?”

The room rumbled again.

Dib yelped and looked down at the floor. “Is this world usually so unstable?”

“Not that I know-”

_Thunk!_

…I was on the floor.

…

I was out.

I was _out_!

I got up on my knees and looked down at my arms. I…

…I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know how, I didn’t care why – I was _free_!

When I looked up and saw Dib slowly backing away, I held up my hands in a non-threatening way. “Hey, don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said, still a little breathless. I looked down and wrung my wrists a bit. “Wouldn’t even dream of it.”

I looked back up at him and saw him pressed against the wall, looking wary as all hell.

“…What’s wrong?” I stepped forward.

Something wrapped around my neck.

I thrashed wildly as a metal collar forced itself around my throat; it latched itself down to the center of the floor and yanked me down to the ground, and I lunged to the side and felt myself choke as a chain jerked me back and I... saw the walls fall apart around me...

I froze.

There were lights.

The lights were long, and white, and they hung overhead, stretching far down through a… room…

The room was dull gray, and was full of seats and paths that stretched out _far_ , all the way to the end. The rows were dark black, and they were full of people – all of them, all their eyes on _me_.

Clear panels folded up around the floor of the “room” I’d been in, like a pen for an animal… and I saw the dragons, the Skylanders, _them_ , all walking by and looking in like I was a pig for the slaughterhouse.

I fell to my knees.

“Now…” a high-pitched voice said, far behind me. “Now begins the- …oh, not this again… You! Please exit the holding cell so the trial may begin.”

_Trial…_

I turned around, and I saw a tall black pedestal on top of what looked like a stage. There was a vulture at the top - brown and covered in bones, with a jawbone for a crown and something red for a cape. It was… it wasn’t looking at me…?

I followed their eyes and I saw Dib still standing there. He was looking back at me…

“Look, kid, if you wanna stay in the danger zone, then that’s fine by me, but don’t say we didn’t try to warn you, alright?”

Dib spun back around. “What’s going on here?”

“We are here to present our data, and prove that Sunburn is a menace to society and must be kept under permanent containment measures,” I heard Drobot say behind me.

“Yeah! Like, what kind of maniac keeps trying to _maim people_?!” Camo yelled. I heard a _thump_ against the side of the pen, and I closed my eyes and stayed down. “He’s a lunatic, that’s what he is!”

“He wasn’t always like this…” Whirlwind said softly. “Did what happened to him… damage his brain?”

“Hey!” Dib yelled. “My brain is _perfectly normal_!”

I turned around and saw Whirlwind shrinking back.

“Besides, you can’t just lock him up!” Dib continued. “Something’s going on here, and I need to find out what happened! I _have_ to!”

“You wanna know what’s going on? Well, you’ve got a phoenix-dragon who turns human, goes insane, and tries to kill his _friends_ ,” Camo snapped. “That enough for you?”

Dib stared blankly at him. “I… don’t think you’re telling me the whole story.”

“But it is! Please don’t fall for what he does!” Whirlwind said. “He just pretends to be nice, and then he hurts you! That’s what he did to us! All of us!”

“ _THAT’S BECAUSE YOU LOCKED ME UP IN THE FIRST PLACE_!!” I screamed, lashing forward as the collar jammed itself against my throat.

The room went quiet.

Drobot glanced at the others, then shook his head slowly. I saw Camo turn around and say something to Zap, who was peering out from behind him.

“I can see what you meant when you judged him as unstable,” the judge said.

I heard muttering.

“Turns human… Maybe Whirlwind’s got a point,” Camo huffed. “Maybe we’ve gotta turn him back or something.”

I shrunk back as I heard the judge speak.

“…The court is now in session,” they said. “This case will see to it that subject Sunburn is either contained or turned back, whichever it may be. You may call me Your Honor, or Miss, or Ma’am, or whatever honorific you deem suitable.” I heard the hard _whack_ of wood against wood. “You may proceed.”

As the Skylanders started talking in the background, I heard the soft _click_ of footsteps. I saw those familiar black boots in my line of sight, and I looked up to see Dib standing there. The look on his face was… he looked unsure and wary, but not hostile. Like he was willing to give me chance.

_Please…_

“Please believe me,” I whispered hoarsely. “I had to lie to get out of there. They were holding me captive. I swear I’m not evil,” I said, as I shuddered again and felt myself beginning to cry. “I _swear_.”

Dib started to reach out his hand, but he pulled it back. “Are you mind-controlled or something?” he asked quietly.

My face scrunched up as the tears ran down. “Not that I’m aware of,” I said back, my voice cracking with a humorous tone that did nothing to make me feel better. I rubbed my hands along the thick metal collar, trying to massage my throat behind it, but I couldn’t reach anything. It was too tight.

Dib watched me for a few seconds, then reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out a small tissue, handing it to me. I gently took it from him and prodded at my right eye with it.

“Are you just doing this to make yourself stop crying?” I asked quietly, with a small and bitter laugh.

He looked away from me, tapping his fingertips together as his eyes darted around. “…Kinda. It’s really creepy seeing myself locked up like this.”

I chuckled a little, thinking about the _miserableness_ of the whole situation. “Sorry about that,” I said as I looked down at the ground. “This doesn’t usually happen…”

As I wiped the tears away from my other eye, I heard muttering and looked up; Dib was turned away from me, and he was talking to himself. “... _could_ be an Irken, but- no, that doesn’t make any _sense_!” He started pacing around. “He almost distracted me from it, but-"

My eyes widened and my hands went straight to my PAK. Dib must have heard the thunk of my hand against the metal, because he turned around and crossed his arms at me.

“I, uh… I can explain,” I said.

 _Thwack!_ “The court will now proceed with the evidence against the subject,” the judge said.

I looked to Dib, desperate. He looked uneasy.

Drobot coolly strolled up to the pedestals, standing in front of them and turning to face everyone. “Subject Sunburn went missing on December 17th, 2011…”

“20 _11_?” Dib hissed in my ear. “Have I traveled back in time? Does this world exist in the past?!”

“No, our worlds just… sync up wrong or something.”

Dib looked unconvinced. “So I’m _not_ in the past.”

“No.”

“…later relocated him, wherein he had transformed into the human and claimed his identity,” Drobot continued as we spoke.

I held my arms around myself. “I never said I was or wasn’t you…”

“So they just… assumed you were me?”

“…led him to our temporary base, in which he stole personal property and proceeded to flee the premises. Subject was later seen the next day, wherein he was properly cornered and contained.” Drobot stood there, blank and emotionless, as people shifted in their seats and the judge peered down at all of us.

“Did the child ever display any of this behavior when he was a phoenix-dragon, prior to the seventeenth?”

“He did not,” Drobot said.

I glanced over at Dib, and I saw him watching me carefully.

“Is that where you got your PAK? From him?” Dib asked.

“Yeah…” I said. “It was his. Or, well… it was sent to him by someone.” I looked up towards the stage, where Drobot was strolling down the tiny stairs and back towards the other Skylanders. “I said I needed help, and they told me they had something, but he refused to let me near it. So I just… took it.” I crossed my arms tighter, aware of how it sounded.

_...Did I do the right thing?_

_If I’d taken the others with me… he wouldn’t have made it, right? They’re loud and dramatic, all of them… and if they’d barged in, that gray dragon wouldn’t have opened the puzzle, and none of them breathe fire… If they’d taken too long figuring it out, Eredwyn and that monster would have come back, and…_

“…It must have been some sort of modified pseudo-PAK,” Dib mused. “Otherwise you’d be dead.”

I blinked; his voice had jolted me out of my thoughts. “Yeah…”

He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but then he froze. As he stood there, his eyes widened, and he turned around and looked at me. “Where did you go after you took that PAK...?”

“Well, I-”

He suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders. “Was there a temple? Dark green and really hot, with big statues and a dragon?!”

“I- yes!”

His eyes drifted off. He let go of me and looked me in the eyes as he backed away. “So it wasn’t just a dream! It was _you_!” His eyes brightened. “That must be why you were turned into me! I must have been captured by that dragon, and he used you as a decoy! But…” I could see his whole body losing tension, his arms lowering as he focused on me. “…Why did you save me?”

I looked at him, confused. “Why wouldn’t I…?”

“Here is photographic evidence of subject’s attempts to kill or severely injure others,” Drobot boomed from across the room, “along with the damage caused by the containment breach.”

Dib looked back and forth between me and Drobot. I took a step towards him, waiting for him to say or do _something_ ; the sheer silence was a sharp change from the talkative person I'd seen before, and it unnerved me more than anything.

“And you believe a reverse transformation would solve these problems?”

“No. Only permanent containment measures.”

Dib looked back at me. “If I get you out of here, will you promise to answer any questions I have?!”

“Yes!”

He turned back one last time, then ran to the edge of the pen and vaulted over the barrier.

“Your Honor! Everyone! I know what the problem is!” he yelled as he literally shoved Drobot out of the way. “This, uh… Sunburst or whoever isn’t insane at all!”

“You are not sound of mind,” Drobot said, walking back towards Dib. “Your judgement is thus questionable and should not be counted in a court of law.”

Dib was taken aback. “ _I’m_ insane?! _You’re_ the one who gutted me with a gear-blade just because you thought I was _him_!”

The crowd gasped. I turned around and watched everyone as they turned towards each other and the noises and voices filled the room.

“Is this true?” the judge asked as she peered down from her seat.

“Yes, and I can prove it!” Dib pressed down against the front of his shirt with one hand and lifted up the side of it with the other… and the voices in the room went into an _uproar_ as they saw the horrible, burn-sealed scar across the side of his waist.

“See?! Why should _you_ be the one telling us what to do if you can’t even tell us apart - _especially_ if you said you _knew_ one of us was a clone?! Huh? _Huh_?!”

Drobot backed away.

“But that’s not all!” Dib proudly declared over all the noise. “I know exactly why he, uh… did what he did!” He ran back over, hopping back into the pen and sliding right next to me. “See this PAK he has? Well, Irken PAKs are…” He paused. “…secretly psychic, and telepathically imprint on their chosen host! He was just… following his destiny or… something!” he said with a bounce in his voice that wasn’t there before.

I looked over at him, and he gave me a sideways glance and a grin that said _this is all a giant lie and we both know it, and I regret absolutely nothing_ , and I had to force myself not to grin right back.

“Isn’t that kind of creepy…?” Whirlwind piped up.

“Oh... Well, it’s really complicated and hard to explain, but it’s _definitely_ not creepy at all.” He whooshed his hands around a little. “Definitely.”

The crowd muttered.

“So not only was him stealing the PAK completely justified, but when you ganged up on him, he, uh…” His eyes darted around. “You, uh… set off his… traumatic memories of being captured - because he has PTSD!”

As the crowd _roared_ , I turned and saw all the Skylanders looking drop-dead _horrified_ , Whirlwind in particular… all except for Drobot. _Of course._

My eyes drifted away. _PTSD… I’ve heard of that before. Something about past traumas, and…_

 _…Is he actually_ right _?_

The judge leaned back. “Oh, this just got interesting,” she muttered dryly. She picked up a tiny wooden hammer and _whacked_ it against the edge of her pedestal several times. “Order, _ORDER_!”

The room went quiet.

“It has been brought to attention that imprisonment would only exacerbate the child’s condition, although the possibility of a transformation is still on the table,” she said.

“Sunburn in his previous state was extremely dangerous,” Drobot said. “A transformation would be suboptimal. Containment is-”

The judge idly waved her wing around. “I know you have the public’s best interests at heart, and I admire that, but a holding cell just isn’t an option anymore.” She signed, and looked across the room. “Does anyone in attendance have any alternative ideas?”

Dib raised a hand and waved it around. The judge turned towards us and rested her head against her wing. “Alright, I’ll bite. What do you suggest?”

“Well, I figured that since you need to do _something_ with him, how about you let me keep an eye on him? I _am_ the only other person who can tell the two of us apart, after all,” he said, putting a hand to his chest.

The judge raised an eyebrow, then slammed her wooden hammer against her desk. “As of today, this… child will be assigned to look after the defendant in whatever way he sees fit.” She slammed the hammer down again. “Case dismissed!” She sighed. “Now where’s my car…” she muttered as she shuffled out of view.

Dib pumped a fist and gave a tiny cry of happiness. I gasped as I felt the collar fall apart with a _hiss_ , and I grasped at my neck, cringing as my fingers touched the raw skin.

“Oh, _man_! Not only did something go _right_ for once, but I might have gained an actual ally! This is… this is _amazing_!” As he stood there with his hands on his sides, his expression started fading. “I’m… not really sure where to go from here, though.” He looked up at me. “So, uh… where do you live, anyway?”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Oh.” His face shifted in thought. “…Do you wanna stay over at my place?”

I felt myself light up inside. “...Really?”

“Yeah! I mean, what could go wrong, right?” He paused. “I mean, I guess you don’t really have a _choice_ , since you’re stuck with me anyway. Uh… sorry about that.”

I chuckled a little. “There’s _no_ way you can be as bad as them.”

As the Skylanders began chattering at each other in confusion (and panic?), Dib gestured for me to follow him, and we headed down the path to the exit together. He seemed to be talking to himself, but I was too… what’s the word? _Exhilarated_. I was way too happy and lost in my own thoughts to pay attention to- _oof!_

I snapped out of it when I bumped into Dib. He didn’t move, and I looked up to see why.

I immediately got in front of him and backed off to the side of the path as I saw that familiar purple dragoness strutting on by.

“Well, look who the cat dragged out,” Cynder said at us, sounding like she was _amused_. She walked right past us, zeroing in on Whirlwind, who was holding her head low and quickly walking away from Drobot and the others.

“Having fun with your bullshit over here? What’d I miss?” Cynder sneered.

Whirlwind turned away from her. “Please leave me alone,” she said quietly.

Cynder snorted and rolled her eyes. “Why should I? I thought you were into this kind of stuff.” I could see her smirking.

“These two are _both_ awful,” I muttered to Dib… and I started to back up as I saw Whirlwind slowly raise her head and turn to face Cynder.

“Leave. Me. _Alone_.”

Cynder’s wings started unfolding. “What’s wrong? Don’t wanna be called out on being Little Miss Bitch?”

Whirlwind slowly reared back… and then she _exploded_.

“I’m the bitch? _I’M_ THE BITCH?! You hate EVERYONE and EVERYONE HATES _YOU_!” she screamed into Cynder’s face, forcing her to back up. “HOW _DARE_ YOU CALL _ME_ A BITCH!”

Cynder flinched. “At least _I admit_ I’m a jerk! You just-”

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY BETTER THAN ME!!” She shook her head and refocused. “I… I may not know what I’m doing, but…” She looked back at Drobot and Camo, who were standing far behind her, then looked back at Cynder with her eyes glowing bright. “At least I’m _on_ a side!” she said, stepping back towards Drobot, who nodded in approval.

I grimaced.

“But you?! You just ALIENATE _EVERYONE_ and act like you’re _sooo_ much better than anyone else, when really, you’re even _worse_! You’re JUST A GIANT HYPOCRITE! You bitch and whine when the _real_ Skylanders do something you don’t like BUT YOU NEVER DO _ANYTHING ABOUT IT_!”

Whirlwind gave her one last glare, then turned back and started to talk away with the others.

I tugged on Dib’s sleeve. “We need to get out of here.”

Cynder spread her wings wide. “Well, at least _I’m_ not spineless like _you_!” she yelled. “At least I _have_ reasons for-”

“YOUR LIFE IS NOT A FREE PASS FOR YOUR BEHAVIOR!” Whirlwind screamed as she wheeled back around. “You can’t DWELL on your OWN _MISERY_ FOREVER! You CAN’T _COMPLAIN FOREVER_! YOU CAN’T JUST SIT AROUND AND DO NOTHING _FOR THE REST OF YOUR FREAKING LIFE_!” Rainbows sparked and sizzled across Whirlwind’s horn, and lightning blasted its way into the ceiling, sending the lights flickering into on-and-off darkness.

Dib and I ran like hell.


	13. Brand New Day

The way back was actually pretty nice. Dib chattered to himself as we walked down the hallways, and he even said a few things to me. No big questions, just idle comments on the place we were in… although I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention, because I was kind of overwhelmed and had trouble believing I wasn’t dreaming.

Then we walked into that glowing blue hall, and I finally snapped back into reality.

“Man, this place sure is amazing…” Dib said, in awe.

I looked around, gently touching the glass wall with one hand. “It really is…” He turned around, and I looked up. “Uh… sorry about being so quiet. I’m still kinda…” I wiggled a hand around, “…out of it.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” he said, still walking down the hall and not really paying attention to me. “I was gonna write down all my observations in a journal, anyway, so I’ll just let you read it when I’m done!” He opened the first door and I followed him through, and then he opened the second door and walked on through as a _massive snowstorm_ slammed into him and nearly knocked him off his feet.

I darted out and braced myself against the bitterly-freezing snow flurry, grabbing Dib’s hand and helping him to his feet. Dib shivered and held his trenchcoat tightly around himself; as he shuffled over to the back door, I stumbled over and almost fell flat on my face as a gust of wind hit _me_.

“I guess that heat wave is over by now!” he said as he fiddled with the door.

I ran over to the wall and pressed myself against it, as the wind and snow wailed and whaled against us. “You _think_?!”

I didn’t even wait for him to keep struggling with the thing; I cut in front of him and jerked on the doorknob, yanking it right open and sending us both stumbling backwards. We both dashed through the opening, and I slammed the door shut the moment we were both inside.

As I ruffled myself and leaned against the countertop, trying to catch my breath, Dib simply brushed himself off and headed in the other direction.

“Gaz, I’m back! And I brought someone with me!” I looked up and saw Dib walking out into the living room. “Hello?” He looked up at something on the wall. “Oh man, it’s already one in the morning. I can’t believe it’s that late already…”

I walked over and looked up to see a clock up there – the stubby part was pointing at the 2 and the long part was… somewhere below that. “No kidding…”

I heard creaking and stomping coming from the stairway.

“ _Who_ did you bring with you, _Dib_?” Gaz groaned as she made her way downstairs, sounding like she’d just woken up… which she, uh, probably just did.

She stood there in an oddly-adorable and puffy angel suit, rubbing at her eyes, then looked up and saw me standing there. Her eyes shot open and her jaw almost fell off her face.

“This is that doppelganger I told you about before I left! He’s gonna be staying with us for a while,” Dib said proudly. He bounded right past Gaz, totally oblivious. “C’mon, I wanna show you my room!” he yelled back as he disappeared up the stairs.

I awkwardly waved hi and gently stepped past her.

I looked around at the dark walls as I ascended the stairs, and I brushed my hand against the wall as I stood before the bedroom door. Dib must have turned the lights on, because unlike the last time I was here, there were purple-ish blue spotlights beaming down from the ceiling, lighting up the purple walls and bringing out the color in all the electronics and posters and other little things.

I also saw Dib was standing in the middle of the room, looking around at everything himself.

“Hmm… There doesn’t seem to be anywhere for you to sleep,” he said. “I’ve heard that most kids share beds for sleepovers, but one, that would feel awkward, and two, I… actually have no idea how old you are.” He paused, turning around to look at me with a mildly horrified look on his face. “You’re not, like, twenty or something, right?”

I shook my head. “I know I was born around the summer solstice – I don’t know which day – and sightings would date that back to…” I tapped my foot. “…eleven years ago?”

He stared at me. “… _Man_. You’re even younger than I am!”

 _…Wait, aren’t_ you _eleven?_ “How old are you?”

“Twelve.” He turned back around. “I guess you could use the other half of the bed...” He ran off to the other side of the room and opened what looked like a big door – a closet? “Wait just one sec!”

As he grabbed around in the closet and tossed things around, I climbed up onto the bed and curled up on the pillow-less end of it, cuddling my head between my arms and anxiously tapping my fingers against the sheets.

 _Am I dreaming? I know I’m not, I’m definitely awake, but… I can’t believe this is all happening. I’m somewhere_ safe _, and I have… I… I have a friend?_

I blinked as something hit the floor with a _foof_ , and Dib walked over and held it up for me – another pillow. I took it from him and just… held it in my hands, holding these feelings close and not letting them go.

_I’m free._

I nodded a little. “I, uh… I hope you don’t mind if I just pass out for now.” I chuckled nervously. “This is a lot to take in…”

“Oh, that’s fine!” he said, waving a hand in a ‘no big deal’ motion. “I’ll just save any _questions_ I have for tomorrow!”

As he walked past me and headed for something else, I curled up with my head on the pillow, took my glasses off and slipped them into my PAK, and curled up tighter. I lied there as the lights clicked off, and I lied there as everything slowly turned dark…

 

* * *

 

The light of the world slowly faded in, and with that, so did the sensations; the softness of the bed, the very faint chill of the air… the figure moving across the other side of the room…

I shifted around, moving my head and resting my chin on the pillow, and I blinked the blurriness away as I saw him turn around.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!” Dib walked over, holding some sort of book in his arms. “We have school today, but I made sure to get up early, so we’ll have _plenty_ of time to go over everything before we have to leave!” He sat down next to me on the bed, and I slowly sat up and rubbed one of my eyes. “I’ll start with the easy questions first.”

I looked down at the book he was holding… or rather, he had several books, with very simple covers and curly metal on the edges.

_…Oh, those are notebooks, aren’t they…?_

“You couldn’t have just said you were sick?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Nah, that wouldn’t have been enough for them,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Anyway! First question!” He flipped open the first notebook and slid his finger over to the first entry. “You said you were a phoenix-dragon, right? What was that like? I’ve never met a phoenix _or_ a dragon before.”

I blinked and sat there for a bit. “…It was miserable,” I said, bobbing my head a little.

“How miserable?”

I glanced in the other direction. “You know… traumatic.”

I heard scribbling and saw him quickly crossing out the first entry.

“So…” He cleared his throat and tapped on the page. “Second question: Can you describe that world we were in last night?”

_…Oh. Oh no._

“Yeah… that…” I looked away and bit my lip, running at least a dozen ideas through my brain on how to explain this without it being _extremely horrifying_.

_I could easily just leave that part out, but… I won’t. He deserves to know._

_…This is gonna suck._

I took a deep breath. “I’ll… try my best,” I said nervously, standing up and moving towards the center of the room as he watched me.

“So…” I anxiously clasped my hands together. “I’ll just get this out of the way first.” I extended my four PAK legs out by two segments. Dib shifted back a bit.

“There’s multiple parallel universes,” I said, pointing the leg-tips up and having little glowing balls float over the tips, “and they all connect to a central world called the Hubverse,” I continued as I gestured to myself. “That’s where we were yesterday.”

“A multiverse! Oh, _wow_! I thought that was just some sort of weird dimension!” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “This is _incredible_!”

I grimaced. _Yeah, that’s the easiest part…_

“Each universe is, uh… before they get connected, they’re kinda like an undefined blob.” I retracted three of the four spider-legs; for the fourth, the one to my front-right, I expanded the bubble and split it into a few wiggly layers. “Split timelines, time travel… But after that, the, uh, timeline solidifies and that all stops being a thing.” I impulsively grasped the spider-leg as the bubble fizzled out, gripping it tightly as I looked up at Dib.

“Interesting… It’s just like Schrodinger’s cat! We neither exist or… don’t exist, until we’re connected and ‘observed’, so to speak!”

“Right…” I held the leg tighter and turned to the side, hesitating. “So, uh, anyway… until they get connected, every universe gets… ‘scanned’ by some unknown force. But after they’re connected to the Hubverse, they can’t be scanned right, so it just comes up with garbage data,” I said hesitantly. “I think that’s because of the… time thing…” I glanced over at him, and he obviously hadn’t picked up on exactly _what that meant_ because he still looked amazed as ever.

“What’s in these scans?” he asked, leaning forward with a shine in his eyes.

I felt my organs knot up.

“…Can we go get breakfast first? Before I explain the rest…?” I asked, feeling my grip on the PAK leg starting to get slippery.

“Oh, sure!” He hopped up off the bed and led me out the doorway.

I let out a sigh of relief.

As we went down the stairs and passed through the living room, I saw Gaz on the couch, playing one of the Metroid Prime games on the TV. She took one look at us, groaned, and _thunked_ her head against her controller.

“Good morning, Gaz!” Dib said as he disappeared into the other room.

As Dib did… something-or-other over there, I walked over to the couch and gently rested an elbow on the back edge of it. I looked up at the game, instantly recognizing the dried-up and dying sights of the Chozo Ruins. I didn’t remember the specific room she was in, but I’d recognize those walls anywhere.

“You alright?” I asked, glancing at Gaz.

She gritted her teeth. “I _guess_ I could be _worse_ ,” she growled.

After a few minutes of watching Gaz trying to glitch her way up a Spider Ball track, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Dib holding two pieces of toast.

“I forgot to ask you what you wanted, so I just got you these!” He handed them over to me.

I took the pieces and started nibbling at one. It wasn’t my usual forte, but it was warm and buttery, and… it just felt _good_.

“Thank you,” I said, biting into the second piece.

“You’re welcome! So what was that you were saying about the alternate universes, again?”

I didn’t respond right away. Dib must have finally picked up on my anxiousness, because he was starting to look concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“…I’ll be fine,” I finally said, swallowing down the second piece.

I heard a loud _slam_ from the front of the house, and turned around to see that Gaz was gone. _Well, someone clearly doesn’t like there being two of us._

_I mean… that’s fair, I guess._

Dib walked past me and sat down on the couch as if she hadn’t even been there. He patted the seat next to him and waited for me.

I walked over and pulled myself up onto the seat… then made sure to press the GameCube controller’s pause button, keeping the timer from running up. (I knew the Prime games didn’t have time-based endings, but hey, it never hurt to be polite.)

I took a deep breath. “Can you promise you’ll try not to panic when you hear this?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you gonna tell me that would freak me out so much? I mean, it’s not like these ‘scans’ are just TV shows and I’m a cartoon character or something, right?” he said jokingly.

I froze.

“…Am I?”

I turned around.

He looked confused at first, but… I saw it finally dawn on him, and I could see the sheer _horror_ of it on his face.

I reached out to him. “Dib, listen to me-”

“I’m not real?!” He jerked away from me. “I’m just someone else’s creation?!”

“It’s not like that-!”

“Has my entire life been a _lie_?” He was breathing fast. “Is that why everyone in this world is insane? Is that why _I’m_ insane?!” He stumbled off the couch and just _stood there_ , hands curled into claws. “That must be why my life is so terrible! It’s all just constructed into some sort of… _horrible plot_!”

I slid off the couch and stepped towards him, but he wheeled around and backed away from me.

“What if finding the Hubverse didn’t even change anything? How can I be so sure that I have free will even now?! What if all of this is-”

“You… you’re…” I took in a deep breath. “I don’t know how these worlds come to be, but I know that no moment of your life has ever been fake. You…” I tried to ease my breathing. “…you have a soul, a will, a heartbeat – everything a real person world have.”

Dib narrowed his eyes; he didn’t look convinced. “How can you be so sure?!”

“Because I’m _from_ one of these worlds, and I know that everything that ever happened to me has been real. Because I know that even the people in the _Hubverse_ can’t turn stories into worlds. The most they ever did was use some virtual reality they found, and even _then_ they can’t make levels any bigger than a city.”

“But even if I _am_ real, that still means that this… _Hubverse_ has been recording and broadcasting every single aspect of our lives!”

I sheepishly held up a finger. “Only a few aspects…”

He raised an eyebrow. “How many?”

“…Twenty-seven, not counting pairs.”

“Twenty-seven episodes…” he murmured to himself. Before either of us could say anything, we heard something explode outside, and we both turned around to see a bright yellow bus driving away.

“…Right. I almost forgot about school,” he muttered. He turned back to me. “Be right back!”

He ran up the stairs and ran back down in less than a minute, now wearing a black backpack and holding a strap with one hand. “Alright, Sunburn,” he said darkly as he walked past me. “I may not have gotten to the bottom of this yet, but I will… _soon_.” He paused. “Wait, why am I being aggressive? You’re already explaining everything willingly.” He stared off into the distance. “… _Man_ , I am _not_ used to people being cooperative with me.”

I nodded a little. “It happens...”

He nodded a little, too, then ran towards the door. “C’mon, let’s get going!”

As he ran out the door, I leaned out and watched him as he ran over to something on the side of the house.

“…Didn’t we just miss the bus?”


End file.
